Fallout 3: Modus Operandi
by commandocucumber
Summary: A supermutant ambush leaves Sentinel Sarah Lyons stranded in the middle of the Capital Wasteland with no supplies of any kind, and only one way home: Work alongside the enigmatic Lone Wanderer, who has his own agenda.
1. Chapter 1

The Overlord picked Sarah up by the throat, growling at her. "Puny human! Will break you!"

It's fingers were thick enough that only two of them could actually fit the space between her delicate chin and her shoulders. She struck out repeatedly with her fist. Despite the power-armored assist, it only served to confuse it.

Supermutants were easy to confuse, and when they got confused, they grew angrier. This particular one spun around and slammed her against the concrete wall of the underpass. She felt her armour dent. The bulky power armour she and her comrades wore was useful, protective, but not invincible.

As the Overlord's grip tightened, her vision began to fade in and out. she felt for her combat knife, and wrenched it out of it's sheath.

Five minutes beforehand, she'd been walking at an easy pace down the south western edge of the DC ruins.

…A lot can happen in five minutes…

A three-day patrol to flush out the regular raider hide-outs and occasional Supermutant. Not a job normally given to the Lyon's pride, but ever since the purifier had been fixed, the Brotherhood had been stretched thinner than ever.

The six man squad trudged through the dusty plains. Sarah had been in the lead

"Got news from home." Paladin Greg "Kodiak" Bear said. he had been silent for most of the trip.

Glade, the oldest of the Lyon's pride, hefted his minigun. "I thought the Pitt was too far away."

"I know." Kodiak nodded. "But two weeks ago, Elder Lyons walks up to me and hands me a letter. Said the Wanderer had given it to'im. He looked pissed, too."

"What was in it?" Knight Captain Colvin asked.

"A note signed by someone called Ashur. My brothers are dead."

"Leave it to the messiah to pull that kind of shit." Knight Captain Dusk snarled. Aside from Sarah Lyons herself, Dusk was the only other female member of the Lyon's pride. The best shot too, though Colvin, her fellow sniper would disagree. Sarah knew what was eating her, though: during target practice one month before, she'd managed on her third try, to hit a bottle from the far side of the courtyard as it was in mid-flight. three shots, one shower of glass The sniper had been very proud of the accomplishment until the Lone Wanderer, without saying a word, did exactly the same thing with an assault rifle. Twice in a row.

A smile touched Sarah's lips. Messiah…

An appropriate title, despite the sarcasm Dusk had applied to it. The Lone Wanderer, 101, Kid, The Drifter... a thousand tags attached to one man. His enemies called him Death, and were scared when they said it. Three years before, he had wandered out of a subterranean survival shelter and taken the wasteland by storm, walking the width and breadth of it, fixing nearly all the problems which plagued it, doing in less than one year what all the strength of the brotherhood of steel hadn't been able to do in twenty. Although he possessed the honorary rank of Knight, and indeed was even a member of the squad now bad-mouthing him, he had never shown any interest in pursuing a proper career with the Brotherhood of Steel. And she could see why. Fed up with the mindless insults.

"Okay, pack it up!" Sarah ordered, turning on her heel. "No, he doesn't report to my dad, and yeah, he doesn't wear the armour, but did you see us fixing the purifier? Or fixing the bomb in Megaton? Can you remember us clearing the raiders out of evergreen mills? Walking into Paradise falls and slaughtering the slavers? Or doing ANYTHING for ANYONE north of Megaton? West of Megaton? Noone?"

"We were busy killing muties." Vargas defended.

"For whom?" Sarah responded. "For what? No one lives there except us! Rivet City is south, but they can take care of themselves. They're the one settlement which can. But Bigtown…had anyone even heard of the place before he helped them out? Yes, we've been doing our part, and all we've managed to accomplish is stop things from getting worse. He's made them better! At the very least, he's given people hope. I don't want to hear another word about it."

She turned back and continued to march. After a little while, conversation sprung up again behind her. Glade crept up to her side and spoke quietly. "You're just sweet on him. And don't even think of trying the knee-jerk 'am not!' reaction. We both know better."

Sarah bit back the reaction and sighed instead. They crested a hill and saw an underpass open up ahead of them.

"That's what I thought." The old soldier nodded with satisfaction. "Sarah, I know you don't often take advice, but here's some I hope you listen to: The Wanderer, whatever he's after, is going to come to a bad end. I've seen men like him before. The ones which are driven by some inner spring rather than flesh and blood. He's after either death or glory and either way it'll turn out the same."

"I just don't think he deserves such a bad rap after everything he's done for us." she told him honestly. Glade stared; coming from Sentinel Sarah Lyons, this was practically a romantic declaration before god.

"What was it that caught you?" Glade wheedled. "The blue eyes? The duster? Or the way he ties back that dirty blonde hair with his red bandana?"

"Stop it. Right now."

"Or maybe the cold shoulder…" Glade teased gently. "The way he acts as if you're hardly there. Like he doesn't need us." his tone of voice turned from one of teasing to one of deep thought "Maybe we don't like him because deep down, we know he's right."

"I think he needs us to keep doing our jobs, so he can keep doing his." She said, a shade coldly.

"How did you hear about Evergreen Mills, anyway? Three Dog didn't announce it."

"Gallows." Sarah answered shortly. Gallows was the Lyon's Pride Spec. Ops soldier. The only one who regularly ventured north of Megaton. He'd brought back a chilling report. Enough to almost make Sarah feel sorry for the raiders. Their slaughter bore the same signature as all the rest. Supermutant camps, enclave camps, and other raider outposts. The Lone Wanderer's signature:

Entire group slaughtered to the last man.

Neat 5.56mm ammo, three round groupings in the heads of the dead. The ones killed close range, dispatched via combat knife.

All ammo and weapons scavenged.

Some weapons disassembled, probably to repair the ones he was using.

One enemy pinned up on railroad spikes as a warning to the rest.

The Lone Wanderer did not play fair.

"But Evergreen Mills is a huge complex." Glade pondered.

"So was Raven Rock. And the Airfield." Sarah chuckled darkly. "I think that to him more numbers only means he'll have more guns to sell afterwards. He's making a killing, I know that much."

"I bet." Glade said as they began trekking down the slope of the underpass.

When they reached the bottom, an assault rifle shot pinged off Glade's armour and planted itself in the door of a dented car. A moment of absolute shock passed, during which Sarah saw the orange shapes with a variety of different weaponry leaping down into the pit with her small band of Knights. Then all hell broke loose.

…Present time…

The Overlord snarled at her as Sarah slashed at it's face with her combat knife. The brief pain made it lose it's grip. She slipped to the concrete road, trying to catch her breath. The rest of the Lyon's pride was being driven back up the slope. Glade took a hit and dropped. Colvin slung the older soldier over his shoulder and backed away, firing at the group of Supermutants. A cold dread rushed through Sarah as she realized there was no way for the Lyon's Pride to reach her. At least twenty-five Supermutants had dropped into the pit, two of them Overlords. Five more wielding Chinese assault rifles, and a few more than that with Miniguns. Simply too much incoming fire and no cover. And they had a wounded comrade with them.

Sarah had always been prepared for death. There was no way she couldn't be, living in the world the way it was. When the Overlord planted it's boot in her face, she was prepared for that too, and the blackness which followed.


	2. Chapter 2

Still alive…

It was the feel of steady rhythmic motion which woke her up. Brought her back was a more accurate description. Rhythmic motion, and discomfort.

Sarah moaned slightly and opened her heavy eyes. through the haze, she could just make out her own hands, tied together. And beyond them: oversized orange shuffling heels. A foul stench hit her nostrils, accompanying the sound of twigs and branches snapping underfoot.

The memories rose up and hit her like a ghoul with a grudge.

Supermutants! Ambush! Glade got shot! She blinked several times, trying to sort through the random flickering images. How did Supermutants manage to hide in the middle of a flat desert? they normally weren't that subtle.

Sarah could feel contact between her own abdomen and the rough skin of the Supermutant's shoulder. No power armour. They'd stripped her to her drawers.

You've been taken prisoner… she told herself, a feeling of despair welling up inside her. Captured…

Supermutants did prefer to capture their prey rather than kill. It had become a well-known fact. However Sarah had always assumed she'd die in battle. Perhaps by a random bullet. Not knocked out and taken prisoner.

She twisted a little, trying to find something else to look at besides the huge canvas loincloth which was performing sterling service in the name of what passed for Supermutant modesty.

Dead Trees bounced upside down in time with her captor's long strides.

Trees… a forest of dead trunks. Where in the Wasteland was there a forest?

Raven Rock.

Her heart sank even further. There were trees in the mountains around the former Enclave Headquarters. But that was almost across the map, and definitely outside of the Brotherhood's scope. Even Gallows never went any further north than paradise Falls. She was in uncharted territory, tied up on the shoulder of a Supermutant. No armour, no weapons, no hope of rescue.

She glanced at the clouded sky. Just to top it off, Night was falling. In the middle distance, to the east, she could just make out the shape of a collapsed rail line, which had been the height of transportation two hundred years before, but now stood as a monument to the sins of man.

"Fire. Wood." A harsh voice grunted. "Make camp." Her captor picked her up and draped her over a tree branch as if she were a towel. The Sentinel waited until he had moved a few steps away, then began kicking desperately, trying to swing herself upright. She was making progress until an enormous hand grabbed her by the shoulder and lifted her easily into the air. She was swung around and came face to face with the same Overlord who had gone after her during the ambush. "Stay! You go, we kill!" its eyes gleamed red in the fading light.

He let go. Supermutants were stupid. Inclined to overlook small details, like binding the legs of their prisoners. Sarah took off as fast as her bruised body would allow, hearing the screams behind her, followed by gunfire. Bark sprang off a tree beside her as it was peppered with bullets. Sharp stones cut her feet, making her curse and limp, but she ran on, fully aware that if she stopped, she was probably dead. Behind her, the angry cries grew more an more faint, the bullets fewer in number. But that didn't mean anything; all it would take was a single well-aimed shot. Her erratic path lead up a steep slope, over several short rocky ridges, and onwards into the deep thick of the forest. And then it ended. She came to a grinding halt and dropped to her knees in front of a sheer cliff. It was at least twenty five feet to the sharp boulders at the bottom.

Heavy footsteps came to a halt behind her.

"There you are!" the guttural voice howled. She turned onto her back and picked up a rock, for all the good it would do, prepared to go down swinging. The Overlord glared down at her from the treeline fifteen feet away. "Will squash you!" it shouted, brandishing an enormous super-sledge. Sarah began to pull herself along the edge of the cliff, dragging the rock along with her. her feet were far too sliced up for her to run anymore. It had been a desperate gambit, but she knew that even if she did manage to escape the Supermutants, there were plenty of other dangerous things in those mountains perfectly capable of clawing her in two. Yao Guai, the Post-apocalyptic bears. Radscorpions, and Deathclaws, to name just a few.

It was insulting, the way the Overlord didn't even charge at her. It seemed to be enjoying itself as it slowly walked up to the edge of the cliff and followed her, inch for inch as she backed away.

"I telled you!" it grunted angrily. "You stay, you live. You run, you die!"

She threw the rock at it's face. The most the useless gesture did was give it a confused expression. In response, it raised the super-sledge above it's head, which exploded.

* * *

The mighty Citadel gates creaked open. Knight Captain Colvin limped through, stumbling under the weight of Paladin Glade. Immediately, a few knights gathered to relieve him of his burden. He immediately slumped under the weight of his own armour.

"Good god." Said a harsh voice from Colvin's own past. He looked up into the face of Paladin Gunney, the most feared drill sergeant in the wastes. Even at his own rank, Colvin still felt his tired muscles twitch, attempting to stand to attention in order to avoid push ups and a solid smack upside the head. "What happened to you, soldier?"

"Supermutants." Colvin managed. His armour was so full of dents and holes it really didn't deserve the name anymore.

"Where's the rest of the Lyon's Pride?" Gunney demanded.

"Holding the line. Arlington Library." Colvin gasped, unstrapping his armour. A few recruits knelt beside him to help. As they unshelled him, he could hear Gunney barking out orders to any knights he could find. Within minutes, the drill sergeant had a force of fifteen soldiers in full kit lined up in martial columns along the parade square. Elder Lyons was standing to the side, and came forward as Colvin, finally free of the heavy armour, tottered to his feet. A helping hand assisted him into a chair. Lyons knelt beside him.

"Tell me," he said in his fatherly voice, worry in his eyes, "Is my daughter among them?"

"I'm sorry sir." Colvin said. "Last I saw, Sarah was surrounded by them. We couldn't get to her." He watched the old man's eyes widened, and added hurriedly "I'm sure she's alright, sir. They like taking prisoners, right?"

"I've been alive too long to hold out hope for that." the old man said.

"He could be right, Owyn." Another old voice spoke. Colvin looked past the grieving form of Lyons to Scribe Rothchild. The man gave him a brief nod. "Go get yourself cleaned up. We'll want a full report in ten minutes. Gunney, get these soldiers to the Arlington Library. Bring home our pride!"

Colvin was escorted down into the A-ring of the citadel. The first thing he did was find a bathroom in which he could wash his face. The water was irradiated, but that didn't matter to him as he slowly and methodically cleaned off the blood and dirt. The last look Sarah had given her squad as they abandoned her was burnt across his inner eye. It was all he could see. He picked up a handful of water and splashed it across the back of his neck.

The door opened. The Door closed.

Colvin turned.

Gallows, the special operations commando was standing silently, watching him.

"They headed north." Colvin said. "Sarah's either dead or with them."

The Stare continued.

"It wasn't our fault!" Colvin practically shouted at the silent figure. "Where the fuck were YOU, huh? They dropped in out of nowhere! Two Overlords with them. Chinese assault rifles, hunting rifles, sledgehammers, tri-beam rifles. Miniguns! What the hell were we supposed to do, huh?" he subsided slightly. "Get her back, Irving."

He looked back into the cracked mirror.

The door opened.

The door closed.

Colvin hung his head.


	3. Chapter 3

"And so I ran." Knight Captain Colvin finished. "I had to get Glade back here for medical help. And get the news out. The Library is a big place. It's like a maze. Plenty of places to hide and retreat. The Pride'll hold out for a long time."

"I will not have my soldiers hunted like rats!" Owyn Lyons declared.

Scribe Rothchild, who had listened to the entire story in silence, leaned forward. "You did well, Knight Captain. Go get yourself checked out by the doctor, then report to the mess for a hot meal of whatever you choose. Tell the chef I'll cover the costs."

"Thank you sir."

Colvin exited the briefing room, closing the door behind him.

Lyons laid his head in his palms.

Rothchild watched carefully. "Owyn?"

"My own daughter…"

"She knew the risks, same as the rest."

"It's not the same!"

"If we don't find her in three days…"

"We'll take four."

"We can't treat this any differently than any other case, Owyn." Rothchild reminded him. "It was your rule. Three days is the limit. If I pulled every man from every outpost, even galaxy news, we wouldn't have the manpower for a widespread search of the entire wasteland."

"She's the only family I have, Reginald." Elder Lyons told him. Owyn only used Rothchild's first name when he was extremely distressed.

"And losing family to the wasteland is a fact of life out here. You and I are not exempt from that rule."

"We'll look for her until we find her." Owyn insisted. "I don't care how many men I have to put out there."

"My friend, I fear you're too close to this. Your judgment is being clouded."

"Of course it is! How could it be otherwise?"

"Three days, Owyn." Rothchild said. "that's more than we can afford as it is. Colvin said that they were heading north. If they get past Canterbury commons, they'll be in uncharted waters. The north is too savage for us to follow. Not even the Supermutants spend much time in the mountains. Deathclaws and Yao Guai own them. If she's beyond that, her life is in the hands of whatever god is willing to listen."

Lyons stared. "You really believe in a god, after living your life in this world?"

Rothchild considered the question. "The great war doesn't disprove the existence of a god. It only means he is not as friendly as we had previously supposed."

"That's a chilling thought, Reginald."

"It's the only one which makes sense, Owyn."

The Overlord halted, blood pouring from what was left of it's face. Sarah stared. there had been no gunshot. No rifle report. It's face had simply disappeared. The super-sledge slipped from it's grasp and landed with a dull thunk on the ground behind it. It fell forward, hit the ground and slipped off the cliff, leaving a bloody trail behind it.

Sarah heard it hit the ground far below with a loud splat. Not one to question providence, she rose to her feet and staggered along the cliff, trying to find a way down.

After a short while, she began to hear the voices of the mutants, working their way along the edge of the cliff. More could be heard within the trees. The voices were accompanied by shouting and the occasional sound of staccato gunfire.

To the west, the sun disappeared behind the treeline. The line of sharp rocks below the cliff was broken by a small pool of water. Sarah hesitated for just a moment, wondering how deep it was. The water within it was a sickly yellow color, and she for all she could see, it might have been three or four inches deep.

A bullet buried itself in the ground near her foot, accompanied by a cry of "There you are!" Sarah leapt.

The water was cold and foul, but she struggled to the edge of the pool and pulled herself up the bank, her bound hands clutching at the thick mud. The wounds on her bare feet stung as she once again struggled to stand, using a tree to pull herself upright. The dusk silhouette of a Supermutant appeared on the cliff above her, waving it's rifle in the air. It jerked spasmodically and pitched forward into the pool. She stared at it's floating corpse, then heard a growl which sent chills running down her spine.

A demonic lizard-like shape was watching her from the top of the cliff. Two curved horns extruded from a predatory face. Three enormous spines protruded from it's back. Neither aspects of the creature caught her attention more than it's hands, the fingers of which ended in huge sharp claws.

She had only seen a creature like this once before. From a distance. She'd watched as it tore a band of brotherhood soldiers to ribbons without getting anything more than a superficial burn.

Deathclaws, most people called them, though most who saw them never made it to the end of the word, usually calling them "Oh Shi-" instead.

"Oh fuck…" she breathed.

The demon hopped off the cliff, putting next to no effort into the jump. Even so, it cleared the pool and landed beside her. Sarah tried to edge around to the other side of the tree, but bumped into one of it's claws. The beast leaned down and sniffed her. She caught a glimpse of long sharp teeth. Rotten breath assaulted her nostrils as she stared into it's pale, slitted eyes.

"Just get it over with." She challenged through gritted teeth.

The beast snarled, and then roared at her, streams of thick drool slithering across it's teeth. Movement from the top of the cliff caught the corner of her eye, though her attention was focused on the creature. The loud crack of a sniper rifle's report echoed throughout the foothills. One of the creature's horn's disappeared, making it's head buck wildly. Sarah Lyons forgotten, it turned to confront the new threat; an indistinct figure on the top of the cliff, shouldering it's sniper rifle and pulling out a combat knife, it's leather duster and blonde hair blowing in the evening wind.

Sarah, from her position beside the pool, had a perfect view as the two combatants leapt at each other. The beast from below, and the man from above. The came together with a crash, and dropped into the pool of water, which immediately began to bubble and froth like a cauldron as the two fighters engaged each other. The beast's tail sent great waves crashing upon the small muddy beach as it thrashed. The human had pulled a normally suicidal move and was standing in between the creature's claws, slicing at it's stomach with his combat knife. The creature's clawed arm came around, trying to swat the human into oblivion, but the man was faster and ducked under it, reversing his grip and jabbing the beast in the throat, causing blood to billow through the pool like ink. For a moment, just a moment, Sarah thought he was going to win. Then the Deathclaw's tail caught him neatly in the stomach and sent him flying into the face of the cliff. He landed in the water with a splash, and sank under. Then everything became very still. A minute past, but the man did not surface. The beast reared it's head and roared in triumph, then turned it's attention to Sarah.

It was halfway to shore when the fighter exploded out of the water like a great leviathan from sailors legends, steam rising off his tattered shirt, drops flying in every direction. He was pulling back the bolt of a Chinese assault rifle. The Deathclaw turned back towards the pool, and met thirty six lead rounds fired from the hip.

Sarah stared. He stepped forward and pulled his combat knife out of the creature's throat, washing it carefully in the pond and sheathing it.

He just killed a Deathclaw.

He turned towards her and she could finally make out his features. Recognizable from past experiences, and Three-Dog's motivational posters, which had become his trade marked look: leather duster. Chin-length blonde hair, tied back with a red bandana. An unshaven face, and the sharp feral blue eyes which she knew took in more information in a single glance than she would in five minutes of steady gazing. Sarah realized she didn't know his actual age. She also realized that she could never give an accurate guess. Only a range, and she'd place him between twenty-five and thirty. His scars and general weather-beaten look said fifty, his bone structure said twenty-five, and those feral eyes said two hundred. Elder Owyn Lyons, her own father, had younger eyes.

She had last seen that face eight months ago, stepping off a captured Vertibird onto the tarmac at the Citadel, having just single-handedly blown up an enclave land crawler.

He held her gaze for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to his weaponry, wiping the muck off his Chinese assault rifle and slinging it over his shoulder alongside a sniper rifle. He shrugged off a third weapon and held it easily in his arms.

It was a black, shortened version of the classic American assault rifle with two extra additions: a scope, and a silencer.

There was an awkward moment as they sized each other up. Sarah was acutely aware of how little her underwear actually covered.

"You're a long way from home, Sentinel." The Wanderer told her.

You killed a Deathclaw… "We got ambushed." She replied, shivering. Night had fallen, and the cold was seeping in. through her drenched clothes. The Wanderer laid his weapons against a handy tree and pulled off his duster to reveal his medium build. He lay it across her shoulders. It was surprisingly light. He himself was wearing a condensed version of combat armour underneath. She could see several dents where bullets had found their marks.

"We should find shelter." He said.

You killed a Deathclaw. That can't happen. That doesn't happen… "I need your help."

"Some things never change…" The Wanderer used the tip of his heavily modified gun to lift one of her feet, revealing her sliced up soles.

…the Lyons Pride would have trouble killing a Deathclaw…

"You killed a Deathclaw." She blurted out.

He glanced back at the carcass, then at her. "There's no fooling you. Can you walk?"

"I can limp."

"There's a broadcast tower just east of here. I have a stash there." He pointed slightly southeast. In the gathering darkness Sarah could just make out the bulk of a hill. And the metal framework atop it.

"We walk in silence. Night's fallen. Up here in the mountains, that's when the really mean monsters come out."


	4. Chapter 4

Modus Operandi 4

An open can of Salisbury steak was shoved under her nose, along with an old spork. She stared at the meat, and could've sworn it twitched. "We lead charmed lives, don't we?" they were the first words she'd spoken since they set off for the broadcast tower.

"Don't pull that line." The Wanderer told her. "At least you're guaranteed a hot meal and warm bed. Decent conversation. Most people don't have that. Brotherhood Soldiers live sheltered and privileged lives."

"Despite the fact we get our thankless asses shot off for the wasters?" Sarah snapped.

Her quiet companion stared into the light of a small wind-up lamp he'd set up in the middle of the floor. It barely gave off enough light for her to make out basic shapes in the darkness. Beyond an immediate one-meter radius, it didn't throw any light at all. Not that it mattered all that much. They had made camp in a small circular room under the radio tower. Never in a million years would Sarah ever have even spotted the hatch, which was cleverly hidden behind a rock.

The man had immediately pulled some leather armour out of a suitcase. Sarah was warm, dry, comfortable (aside from her feet), and for the first time since she'd last spoken to Glade, she felt that she wasn't in any immediate danger. That counted for a lot. He had draped a blanket around her shoulders to keep her warm, which was a thoughtful touch.

"I didn't say you didn't deserve it." the Wanderer said. "Those who take the biggest risk, sacrifice the most, deserve the greatest reward."

"And what's your reward?" Sarah asked. "According to Three-Dog, you've sacrificed more than anyone else in the wasteland."

The Wanderer leaned back, intentionally throwing his face into shadow. "Three Dog's speeches aren't always the most accurate."

"I know. He's turned you into a messiah."

The Wanderer shrugged. "Doesn't bother me."

Sarah raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Getting a little big for your britches? I remember the day we met. I found you cowering behind a concrete wall. From two muties."

"And an hour later I killed my first behemoth." Her companion crossed his arms. "It's only hubris if I'm wrong. And that's not it at all. Hope is the important thing. If Three Dog wants to use my image to spread that, I don't see why I should disagree."

"I guess that's fair…" Sarah picked up the can of food and began to shovel it into her mouth. It occurred to her that she didn't actually know how many days had passed since she had last eaten. The meat was cold and repulsive, but she swallowed mouthful after mouthful, not knowing when her next meal was going to come. Then she choked as the conversation ran itself through her head. "First?"

"First. I've come across a few others since then. Two in the Evergreen mills area, one in Takoma park, and one in the capitol building itself, though Talon mercs technically got that one."

Sarah stared, trying to imagine the twenty-foot tall monstrosity being taken down by a single man with an assault rifle. It was difficult to stomach.

"So, how long till they think you're dead?"

The question caught her off guard, but she ran it through and realized he was asking about the Brotherhood. "They stop the search after three days. But that's not the same thing. We're still listed as Missing in Action. Not Killed in Action. And don't say it like that. We don't have the resources."

The Wanderer whistled. "One whole letter difference, eh? Has anyone ever come back after the three day mark?"

"A few." Sarah admitted, trying to ignore his jab. "Less than I'd like."

"Any at all is good."

She nodded.

They settled into what was for her an uncomfortable silence. She broke it with a statement. "You saved my life."

"Yes."

"Would it matter to you if I thanked you?" She hadn't meant it to slip out like that, but the man was getting on her nerves.

"It might." He admitted, after a long silence. "I did put something important aside to help you."

"More important?" Sarah asked, her tone demonstrating that what he said next would dictate their working relationship for the rest of their days.

"Poor choice of words. Raiders keep finding their way into the capital wasteland. I've driven them out of Evergreen mills more than once. I'm trying to plug the leaks. I have a pretty good idea where, but I needed conformation. They cause more deaths than the Supermutants." The Wanderer said. "But when I see them hauling off a captive, I do my best to save them."

"We do too. But not if it means getting one of our own killed." Sarah told him.

He nodded.

More silence.

"Would you like to listen to some music?" he asked, catching her off guard again.

Sarah set down the empty tin and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "I'd like that."

He reached down to a strange green computer wrapped around his left forearm. Sarah knew what it was of course: the Pip Boy 3000. She had never seen it up close, and only knew that he had never been seen without it.

The Wanderer adjusted a few dials on it, and was rewarded with light scratchy jazz piano, accompanied by a soulful clarinet.

"That's…useful." Sarah commented.

"I don't listen to it much." Her companion explained. "Up here, if you don't keep your eyes and ears open, you're dead."

Her feet still hurt, and left a red stain on the floor wherever contact was made. She knew that some rocks were stuck under the skin, but it was hard to reach them from such an awkward position, and all of her joints were aching so much it was hard to stretch in any case. But she grunted and crossed her leg, trying to clean her feet up by the meager light.

The Wanderer dug around in his suitcase and produced a roll of grey bandages and a pair of tweezers. He flicked a second button on his pip-boy and the room was suddenly lit in a warm yellow glow. They watched each other for a moment, then he extended a surprisingly gentle hand and moved her foot so he could get a better view. He handed her a familiar syringe.

"Med-X?" she asked.

"Do you want it painless, or not?" he responded. "My dad was a doctor, and I've patched myself up countless times. Med-X, Stimpacks, bandages. That combo lasts for days on wounds far worse than this. Now either take the Med-X, or give it back.

Sarah hesitated for a moment, then slipped the needle into her own arm. She felt the drugs seep through her, dulling the pain and warping her senses until she was only vaguely aware of the tweezers slipping into the cuts., pulling out rock after tiny rock. In the background, Billie Holiday's fragile voice washed over her. The blanket had somehow grown warmer and softer. Sarah slipped into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Modus Operandi 5

Sarah awoke to the smell of cooking meat. She had fallen asleep with her back to the wall and her head on her shoulder. She straightened up and rubbed the side of her neck, trying to work out the knot which had developed. Her feet had dulled to an ache which, when compared with the soreness in the rest of her body, really didn't amount to much. She noticed that he had bandaged them up completely and fit impromptu leather moccasins over them. She did her best to remember the night before, but everything after the Med-X was a blur. It certainly had dulled the pain though.

The Wanderer had opened the hatchway, and welcome sunlight streamed down, filling the interior of the shelter with light. A small smokeless fire had been constructed at the base of the ladder, and he was turning a few pieces of meat over an improvised spit. It was obvious that he had been up for some time. his weapons, as always, were laid out beside him in neat rows. There were quite a few more of them than she had originally remembered, including a hunting rifle and sawed off shotgun. But she could tell by the way things were positioned that the prize of is collection was the silenced assault rifle. After that came the Chinese assault rifle, which possessed a larger magazine than most.

Sarah gathered up the blanket and walked, gingerly, over to him. "That smells delicious." She said.

"Six pieces of Boatfly meat." The Wanderer told her. "And I have some Punga fruit in my bag. My dad always said breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"Don't you think it's dangerous, though? I mean, that smell will probably attract a curious critter or two…"

"I'm not too worried." He said absently. An explosion from above caused a light shower of dust to sprinkle down upon her head. Sarah had been around enough explosions that she didn't duck or scream, but she did flinch slightly.

"What was that?"

"A curious critter or two being attracted to the smell." He answered, with an infuriating lack of concern. His attention was centered on the small fire. The head of a Mole Rat bounced off the top rung of the ladder and rolled a few feet into the survival shelter.

"Right…" said Sarah, taking a seat on the opposite side of the fire. "Thanks for patching me up. When are we leaving for the citadel?"

"You can leave whenever you want."

"I can?" Sarah's brow wrinkled. "You're not coming?"

"I've lost enough time already." The Drifter stared into the fire.

"You can't just abandon me!" she said heatedly.

He glanced up and ran the idea through his head. "You're right." He reached across the rows of weaponry, picked out the sniper rifle and handed it to her, as well as a small satchel. "Ten Stimpacks and three extra clips for the rifle. That should get you as far as Arefu if you be careful and avoid heavy fighting. Talk to Evan King. Tell him who you are and that you need access to my supply stash. I'm pretty sure there's some enclave power armour there. You can use it to get back to the citadel." He resumed tending to breakfast.

"I'm not just going to be dismissed!" Sarah insisted.

"Yes you are. I can't take you with me. You'll slow me down and we'll both get killed because I spent too much time trying to watch out for you."

"Oh I can assure you that if anyone in this wasteland can take care of herself, it's me." the Sentinel replied coldly.

"Of course." He replied, his voice smooth. "that's why you're here in the first place."

"We got ambushed!" Sarah snapped back.

"By ten foot tall bright orange men with no pants. If you can't see that coming from at least a mile off, you're of no use to me."

"I can't believe I'm even hearing that after all we've done to help you!"

"Oh I'm not saying the entire brotherhood is useless." He replied, suddenly on the defensive. "You do excellent work when wearing power armour, using heavy weaponry, traveling in large groups, and fighting enemies who use sledgehammers. I've seen overlords tear through you and outcast soldiers with no problem."

"Excuse me, but we faced down the enclave."

"With the help of a giant robot who tossed nukes like footballs." He said, neatly deflecting the argument. "And when push came to shove, which particular man was sent in by himself to take out their landcrawler? You have your uses and you have your place, and everyone, me included, are the better for it. But you travel slow, you fight heavy, and you aren't good at improvising. You just don't match my style. That'll get you killed."

"Well that settles it." Sarah said, her blood boiling. "Now I'm definitely going with you, just to prove you wrong."

"I can't afford be watching out for you." the Wanderer warned, finally meeting her gaze. Underneath the scars and stubble was a handsome man, but the steel blue eyes made her uncomfortable. They said: I've seen more than you ever will.

"You won't have to." She promised. "What's the plan?"

He stared at her thoughtfully. She felt a small amount of heat creep into her cheeks, and fought it down.

"What about your dad?" he asked.

"He'll be fine." She assured him. "I've been away before."

"But never missing in action."

"I'm not dead." She said irritably.

"He doesn't know that."

"I'll be safer with you than I will be wandering around the wasteland on my own with nothing but a sniper rifle. Especially since I won't have my armour. This is a self-preservation thing as much as it is an 'I want to prove you wrong.' Thing."

"I have to meet a contact west of here." He said. "Depending on the outcome of that meeting, we could be leaving the wasteland for a month or more. Can you handle that?"

"_Leave the wasteland?_"

"I guess not…" he sighed reflectively and dismantled the spit, using his combat knife to cut the meat up.

"Is that where you go when you leave?" Sarah asked. "When you disappear? You just leave us?"

"I'm pretty sure I've found where the raiders are coming through. If so, we march right up into the middle of their camp and politely ask them to stop."

She continued to stare, the crowd of questions getting jammed in the proverbial doorway of her mind.

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a large key, turning it over in his hand, he said "If they refuse, we'll do for them what the Supermutants have done for us; launch their city into an unending and unwinnable war of attrition. That'll free the wasteland from raiders, which leaves me free to deal with the Supermutants. After _that's_ done, we can start building."

"And you just planned that out?"

The key vanished. "Not quite. But the contact will be at fort Constantine come nightfall. If we miss him, I'm up here for another useless three weeks until he comes around again" He looked across the fire at Sarah. "That's why stopping to rescue you was a major problem for me. That's why I'd prefer you head south."

"Well I'm coming with you." She said. "I can still change my mind if I need to."

"This is a bad idea, Sarah."

"I've heard worse."


	6. Chapter 6

Modus Operandi 6

Silence was not something Sarah was used to. All throughout her life, there had always been some manner of background noise. But complete silence aside for the desolate wind was not something she had ever encountered. Most of her adult life had been spent fighting in the downtown DC ruins, where there was always noise, whether it be debris or buildings settling, the chatter of her comrades, the jingling of her power armour, or the noise of battle. But out in the wilderness, there was no noise at all. Just the wind.

As she followed the Wanderer west along an old highway, she thought: I'm probably the first person to step in this spot in over two hundred years. It's been that long since the last human beings traveled these streets…

She looked back and across the wasteland she could just make out the distant ruins of DC. It was a depressing sight from this far off. She could see not only what it was, but what it used to be, and could have been.

And just like that, the world changed. She could almost see it happening before her eyes: the trees regrowing, turning green and sprouting leaves; grass and bushes sprouted out of the ground and the entire world was a kaleidoscope of natural colors. Birds wheeled overhead; the cracks in the road sealing themselves; the rusty derelict cars transformed into sleek, shiny vehicles zipping by on the freeway. Off in the distance, the buildings in DC were whole again, standing tall, proudly, a far better tribute to human engineering than any atom bomb had ever been. The streets were repopulated with normal people. Men in business suits discussing work between cups of coffee. Women and children walking across the mall from the museum of history to the museum of technology. And far above all their heads, the Mag-Lev train goes zipping past, carrying busybodies from one side of the country to the other, noone imagining that tomorrow would be any different than today until one fateful night when the sky lit up and the American dream came crashing to an end. A victim of the very foundations which built it: capitalism, entrepreneurism, imperialism, patriotism, and democracy. A system of freedom so devoid of regulations that it allowed people to vote for the end of the world, and spend their lives working towards it. Fighting for it with every breath in their bodies, believing that their patriotism was more important than survival.

It was humbling, in a chilling way.

A gentle hand gripped her shoulder and it all vanished. The maglev train was a broken wreck, the people vanished from the streets. The tall proud buildings were bombed husks. Mere shadows of their former glory. The cars were crashed wrecks, wasting away in the hot sun. The roads were cracked and pitted, their potholes filled with radioactive muck. The birds were carrion eaters, waiting for her to die so they could feast. The grass vanished, the trees all blackened scarred remnants… it all came crashing down.

She looked into the strong eyes of the Wanderer, and saw a glimmer of understanding. "It's different when you're looking at it from a long way away, isn't it?" he asked quietly.

She tried to put her thoughts into words. "When you're in the middle of the DC ruins, it's all about the immediate area. The immediate situation. _This_ car can be used as cover. _That_ building might have a sniper in it. _I wonder if the Muties are camped out around the corner_…you never stop to think of what it once must have been. But out here." She gestured flamboyantly as she waved at the distant city. "Out here there's no borders. How do you stand it?"

"It can drive you mad, if you let it." Bitterness entered his voice. "Especially if you know just how far things have gone… I never saw the old world except for pictures in the vault. I was taught about the American way of life. How it used to be. The happy families, the proud businessmen. The patriotism…the glory of our nation, and then I came up and saw this…" he waved his hand at the barren desolation.

"I wonder if there isn't a man somewhere in China, looking at what his city, his country has become and thinking the same thing I am: how could they possibly have let this happen? How did things ever get this far?" Sarah said thoughtfully.

"Wouldn't doubt it." her Companion said. "C'mon. We're losing light."

Fort Constantine was the last place in the capital wasteland where fully operational nuclear weapons could be found. It was a ticking time bomb. Had Sarah known this, she may have shown more reluctance in setting up camp on a rocky ledge overlooking the multistory complex. Her companion had set himself up with his sniper rifle facing down the only accessible route.

Time ticked away. The had arrived late in the afternoon, and then remained motionless for a few hours until the sun began to set, bathing the sky in a symphony of colours. Sarah found the view from atop the cliff spectacular. A quiet noise told her the Wanderer had relinquished his post to join her. They sat together for a while, drinking in the beauty of it.

"I never saw a sunset or a sunrise until I was nineteen." He spoke quietly, eyes never leaving the brilliant colors of the sky. "the day I walked out, I sat on a broken overpass and watched both. I've tried to always watch them if I can."

"What about last night?" she asked. "You saved me."

"I know. I only saw those Supermutants because I was watching the sunset and looked down. And I saw you."

Sarah glanced at him, and her eyes widened as she spotted a huge shape moving up the path behind him. "Um…there's a…a super mutant…" her hand began to inch towards his pistol. He covered it without looking.

"Just one?"

"Yeah. It's coming closer."

"That'd be my contact. Be courteous."

"_Courteous?_"

"He is my friend."

"_Friend?_"

The Supermutant's feet crunched on the rough terrain as it slowly walked up to the two travelers. Sarah immediately noticed it's walk. Unlike the predatory robotic movements of it's brothers, this mutant's walk was the fluid walk of an individual who had grown used to peace.

It watched them for a moment, then took a seat on the Wanderer's other side, opposite Sarah. It turned it's eyes skyward, joining the Wanderer in his ritual watch of the setting sun. Sarah edged away slightly.

"It's good to see you, Leo." Said the Wanderer

"And you." the mutant responded. Instead of the snarl of rage which adorned the features of every Supermutant she'd ever seen, this one's expression was one of permanent curiosity. It had managed to turn it's harsh voice into a calmer, gravelly bass sound which would certainly have sounded good on the radio.

"Your companion is nervous." The thing said, it's deep gravelly voice oddly pleasant. It was the first time Sarah had ever heard one speak calmly.

"She's spent her lifetime killing your brothers without mercy." The Wanderer explained.

"Ahh." The Supermutant rumbled "And they, her. No doubt they struck the first blow." It looked directly at her, giving her the most deeply intelligent look she'd received from a sentient being. "I hold you no ill will."

Her eyes flickered reflexively from the Wanderer's pistol to the Mutant's face. It sighed deeply, a sad expression replacing the curiosity. "Alas, you do not feel the same."

"Prejudice is a horrible thing." The Wanderer said.

"What?" Sarah demanded, rising to her own defense, "You've killed more of them than anyone!"

"They would have attempted to kill him. My brothers are a mindless destructive weight, driving this wasteland and everything in it into oblivion." the mutant responded. "That is why he kills them. He is more than willing to break bread with any being who seeks peace. Along those lines, a thought occurred to me during my travels."

"Share." The Wanderer prompted.

"I listened to the DJ's broadcasts whenever the opportunity presented itself. You know, most people think you _are_ the wasteland." The Supermutant said "a personification of it. The constant struggle between human and animal. Between old and new."

"I don't think any of us'd put it quite like that," Sarah admitted, "But it's close to the truth."

"The Truth?" the Supermutant laughed warmly, a wholly unsettling sound. "Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason he can change this world is not because he is it and it is he, but because he is not. He is of the old world, despite his own best efforts. When he looks at this, he sees not what it is, but what it was, and what it could be…that is why he is able to shape it." he died away into silence.

The Lone Wanderer seemed unperturbed by the Supermutant's musings.

"May I inquire as to your presence here?" it asked. "As far as I have been informed, you were not part of the plan."

"He rescued me." Sarah said. She tried to settle her nerves, reminding herself that the man next to her had killed a Deathclaw singlehandedly the previous night. She was probably quite safe. He also seemed to trust the Supermutant.

"She's with me until I can find someone to take her south to the citadel." The Wanderer added.

"I don't supposed _you_ could take me south…" Sarah asked the mutant, feeling awkward.

"No. I like it here, but the north is my prison." The mutant explained. "I have taken too many bullets from your kind to make the south worth it."

Despite herself, Sarah felt a shred of guilt.

The last rays of the sun disappeared below the horizon. It was as if a switch had gone off. The Drifter's almost ethereal fascination with the sky vanished. He was suddenly all business. "So Leo, did you see?"

"You were right." The Supermutant responded instantly. "They come through the tunnelin groups. A dozen at a time. The Raiders come in, the slaves go out. They keep a camp nearby with a slave pen in it."

"I know of the place."

Silence fell on the group.

"And what do you intend to do once you get to the other end?"

"If I can't talk them out of sending Raiders here, then I plan to do a very bad thing." The Wanderer said honestly. "I know of your Views, if you want to stop me now's the time…"

"Depends on the offence."

"Unleashing death, destruction, and chaos on an undeserving population."

Sarah and the Mutant sat in shocked silence.

"…An ambitious crime, certainly." The Mutant replied. "What would your justification be?"

"I believe it will save the wasteland. Or at least put us further on the path to recovery. It's a last resort. I'm hoping the threat will be enough."


	7. Chapter 7

Modus Operandi 7

Sarah awoke early the following morning. They had slept that night under the stars. Sarah was still trying to get used to the sky, to just how open and free the world outside of DC was.

The Wanderer had volunteered to take first watch, and she was alarmed to find that he had settled down against a rock, fast asleep. The Supermutant was still awake, however, and Sarah immediately took a personal inventory. She was mildly surprised to find that she still had all her limbs.

"You are far too nervous." The mutant said quietly, it's face hidden in the morning shadows.

"You're a Supermutant." Sarah said.

"You are an observant woman." The mutant replied.

Sarah wasn't quite sure whether it was trying to make fun of her or not. Either way, she had far too many questions to let it bother her. She decided to start with the most pressing one. "Why aren't you trying to rip me limb from limb?"

The Supermutant named Leo seemed to think this through "What would it accomplish?"

"…Well I'd be dead."

"Yes I am a Supermutant. That does not mean I live by their violent code.

"So what is your code?" Sarah asked.

Leo considered the question carefully. His answer came in the form of a quote. "Seek out the good in every man. Speak of all, the best I can. Then will all men speak well of me, and say how kind of heart I be."

"Chaucer?" the Wanderer asked.

"Indeed." Leo answered with a smile.

The wanderer's blue eyes were wide open, watching the two of them from between long strands of blonde hair. No trace of exhaustion could be found within them. He had been awake the whole time, Sarah realized. She asked him out loud to confirm it.

"I was waiting." Came the reply.

"For what?"

"For you to wake up."

"So you didn't get _any_ sleep?"

He rose, stretched, and shouldered his scoped assault rifle. "I let Leo take second watch. Then I took third. Now you're awake, and dawn is on the horizon. I'll arrange breakfast." With that, he turned down the trail and disappeared.

Sarah turned back to Leo. "How much sleep did he get?"

"Two hours." the Mutant said. "Maybe less…"

"You can't survive on two hours of sleep. Not in the wasteland, anyway."

"If he were a normal wastelander, I would be in agreement with you." Leo said. "However, he is the Lone Wanderer, and those sorts of rules don't seemed to apply."

"Who is Chaucer?"

"Geoffrey Chaucer." Leo explained in the voice of an encyclopedia "a fourteenth century English poet, widely regarded as the father of English literature."

Sarah stared.

"It is natural for you to categorize your world, and the creatures in it." The mutant rumbled. "but not every piece fits the puzzle. I do not fit the puzzle, but I fail to see why it should matter. I just want to be. That is all. To exist is extraordinary in and of itself."

* * *

Gallows picked up a handful of dirt and ran it through his fingers to reveal two gleaming shell casings.

He disliked being this far north. Being the only member of the brotherhood ever to venture further north than Canterbury commons, he had occasionally found himself negotiating the unforgiving rocky plateaus. Walking through the vast forest of blackened dead trees. The sun never truly came out in the north. The sky was always overcast, the wind cold, and the ground barren.

He looked up at the heaps of Supermutant corpses, two dozen in total. Lying in groups of three or four, three round groupings in the heads of each one. All hunting and assault rifle ammo was missing. A weapon or two had also been field stripped. Empty casings carpeted the area. A detail which Gallows took notice of was the fact that all of the dead were pointed in different directions; they had no idea where their enemy was.

Knight Captain gallows had encountered this same style of massacre many times before both in, and outside of the DC ruins. The signature was reminiscent of one man: the lone wanderer. That was a reassuring sign; he tended to save any Supermutant prisoners he came across. And I Sarah was with him, then she was probably alive.

A set of tracks led east from the main battlefield. Gallows followed them. As he walked, he became aware of bloodstained human footprints in addition to the heavy impressions made by the Supermutant's feet. They were smaller than a man's footprint. So it was either made by Sarah, or another female prisoner. She had given the mutants a run for their money. The trail painted a winding path through the forest of dead trees, over the sharp rock walls which blocked the landscape until they arrived at the edge of a cliff. Gallows peered over the side and saw far below, the body of a Supermutant overlord, crushed against the rocks. The brotherhood knight went back to the treeline and, after some amount of searching, found eight 5.56mm casings.

The Wanderer had saved her life.

The bloody trail continued along the edge of a cliff until it reached a pool, the yellow water turned dark with blood.

Gallows stared at the carcasses within. One was that of a Supermutant, and the other…he knew what it was, of course, had encountered them before. Had killed a few, using a sniper rifle from a position it couldn't get to. but it was an intimidating thing to see it so up close.

Gallows used his sniper rifle's scope to examine the corpse; jumping into the pool in power armour would result in rust, clogged filters, and all sorts of other issues he wasn't willing to deal with. Not this far from the Citadel.

Bullet holes and knife wounds. It had to be the Wanderer. Taking out a Deathclaw from close-range was suicide for anyone else.

Finding a way down to the edge of the pond took a little while. He watched the sun slowly creep across the morning sky. It was Sarah's third and last day. It had taken Gallows two days just to find and follow the trail to this point. If he didn't find any sign of her by midnight, he would have to head back.

On the pool's bank he found more tracks. Someone, no- two people had been walking on the bank. The woman had dragged herself out of the water, onto the bank. And a man's boots. Combat boots. Walking up out of the pond.

Gallows followed the trail…and the two of them had stopped _here_. To talk, presumably.

Then they had started east, the woman limping. They'd be looking for a place to rest. A place to sleep, eat and heal. To Gallows' own knowledge, no such place existed. Gallows directed his gaze to the broadcast tower in the middle distance.

Unless…unless he'd missed something.

* * *

The scope's crosshairs rested easily on the left eye of the raider. Sarah took a deep breath and tried to steady herself on her perch to the south of the raider camp, which consisted of several corrugated steel structures, a slave pen, and a tunnel entrance, blocked by a huge iron grill.

Without her power armour, the sniper rifle felt heavy, awkward, and unfamiliar in her hands. The Wanderer had handed her the weapon in case things went 'wrong', then disappeared into the dead forest.

She did a headcount and came up with nine raiders. She waited for five minutes, nothing happened. Ten more minutes past, and still nothing. Sarah began to scan the treeline, trying to spot the brown duster. In the camp, the slavers gathered around a central fire, eating a meal. She saw one of them toss a scrap of meat at the slave pen. The occupants dove for it and fought like savages.

It happened suddenly, without any warning at all. All nine raiders simply collapsed, showered in their own blood and the blood of their comrades. Once again, no rifle report. Just death.

A shape warped into view, crouched on top of one of the nearby rusted steel hovels. Sarah directed the scope to rest on the Wanderer as he unfolded from his combat crouch, pulling the depleted Stealthboy off of his arm. Once again, he was using his silenced assault rifle.

He met her eye through the crosshairs and waved her out of cover.

* * *

It was the smell which eventually lead Gallows to the entrance of the survival shelter. Corpses fermented quickly in the capital wasteland, and mole-rats possessed a foul stench to begin with.

This particular one had very obviously stepped on a land mine. It was spread over the entire area.

The knight-captain was feeling extremely smug about his find. He viewed it as confirmation of his views. He had never fully bought the legends surrounding the vault-born messiah. The man was only human. He had to eat, sleep, and rest just like anyone else, yet with the help of the wasteland's resident DJ, he had somehow constructed a web of what, in Gallows' private opinion, were half-truths and gossip, designed to place the wanderer on a pedestal. To provide a beacon for the lost and hopeless in the wasteland. An admirable goal, but a byproduct meant that the blood shed by Gallows' brothers on behalf of the wasteland received little to no recognition. Finding the Wanderer's secret survival shelter was equivalent of a child spotting the magician's trick. It proved that the Wanderer's tales were smoke and mirrors. The Wanderer was not an invincible, unstoppable force fighting on the side of good, but a man with a set of fancy guns.

Gallows pulled open the hatch and leaned into the shelter. It was well stocked with cans piled along the back wall. the two side walls were taken up by a set of bunk beds. A fire had recently been built at the base of the ladder. Gallows climbed down and felt the warm embers. The bloodstain footprints ended on the floor of the shelter next to a small pile of bloody bandages and a used Med-X syringe.

So the Wanderer had rescued Sarah, brought her here…fixed up her feet, and then what? Headed back to the Citadel, probably. That was the sensible choice. Yet Gallows' sixth sense, the one which had allowed him to survive all those years on his own in the wild, woolly wasteland, told him that he wasn't in possession of all the facts.

Sarah, much like her father, was an idealist. She believed in the Wanderer's message, and method of operating…

No one wandered this far north without an agenda. Not even the Lone Wanderer. He was north for a reason.; he had a mission.

If Gallows knew Sarah, and he did, he knew that she'd want to help the Wanderer finish it.

Despite his misgivings, Gallows could not deny that the young man knew his way around a rifle. the Sentinel was probably safe, which left only one question: whether to follow, or report back to Elder Lyons.


	8. Chapter 8

Modus Operandi 8

Paladin Glade awoke, feeling sick. He stared up at the reassuring, familiar, and crumbling plaster ceiling of the citadel medical bay. His wounds stung, but at least he was breathing, and seemed to be able to move freely.

"Glad to see you're awake." Said a voice. Glade looked to his left. Knight-Captain Colvin, Knight-Captain Dusk, and Paladin Kodiak were seated to his side, a card game spread out on an abandoned medical tray.

"Can we deal you in?" Kodiak asked, waving his own hand. Colvin snuck a look at it while the Paladin was distracted and immediately laid down his own cards saying "I fold."

"Because you have no balls." Dusk chided.

"Says the woman in the group." Colvin shot back.

"it's a figure of speech!" Dusk snapped defensively. "Lay'em on the table, Kodiak."

Paladin Kodiak did so, and Dusk groaned.

"Game set and match." Kodiak said happily, scooping up a sizeable pile of caps. "Eighty caps. That's an entire month of booze."

"Give the money to me and it'll be eighty dead muties." Dusk offered.

"I've already killed twice that many for half the cost." Colvin replied, a smug look on his face.

"What happened?" Glade asked. "We got to the Library…"

"Ambush. We fell back the library." Kodiak sniffed. "Colvin broke through the mutie lines, carrying you on his back. The rest of us got rescued by Gunny and a bunch of greenhorns."

"Not our proudest moment." Colvin reflected.

"Fuck it. We were nearly dry. I'm just glad we're home." Kodiak said.

"Thanks for the lift." Glade said.

"Don't mention it." Colvin replied. "I only threw my back out for you. And didn't I tell you to lay off the sugar bombs? I swear you've gained ten pounds since the last time I had to carry you."

"When was that?" Kodiak asked distractedly.

"Rivet city, just after the purifier was activated." Dusk said.

"That's a sharp memory you have there…" Colvin said carefully.

"You wound up stumbling around the flight deck wearing a combat helmet and a woman's summer dress, singing Butcher Pete." Dusk reminded him, stone faced. "Do you honestly think I'd forget something like that?"

Colvin seemed to shrink.

"…anyway," Glade said, trying desperately to remove the image from his own mind, "did we take any casualties?"

The light atmosphere disappeared, pasting sullen looks on the faces of the three soldiers. Colvin nodded at Glade's other side.

Glade rolled to his other side and ended up face to face with a sleeping Paladin Vargas, Sarah's second in command, whose upper body was covered in translucent burns.

"He got caught in the open." Dusk said quietly. "And overlord with a tri-beam laser opened up…Sawbones is keeping him under."

Glade flipped through what little he could remember after he had gotten shot. "And Sarah?"

The mood grew darker. "they took her captive." Colvin said. Glade's heart sank. "Gallows is out looking for her."

"Where?"

"Up north, I think."

"How far north?"

"Too far." Said Dusk.

* * *

It was the growl that saved his life. Gallows heard it as he exited the survival shelter. He ducked, and a huge black clawed paw swiped neatly at the space it had occupied a split second before. If he hadn't ducked, the blow probably would have broken his neck. He rolled sideways and came up with his sidearm in hand.

The giant bear growled at him and circled, gnashing it's sharp teeth. Yao Guai were fearsome from a distance, and the proximity did nothing to assist matters. Giant black bears with milky eyes and patched fur; a product of the nuclear holocaust.

The Yao Guai leapt at him. Gallows dove backwards, depleting the entire charge in his laser pistol. The red beams struck the thing in it's belly, filling the air with the harsh scent of burnt flesh. The bear landed on top of him, pushing both of them into the rusty fence which surrounded the radio tower compound.

It's jaws made to close around his throat and he thrust his power -armored forearms into it's jaws, preventing them from closing.

The hydraulic joints of the armour strained against the unyielding power of the Yao Guai jaws. He could feel it's paws pounding on his abdomen, the power armour protecting him from the worst of the impacts. It's claws scraped uselessly against the metal.

The fence gave against the weight and spilled both of them out onto the flat ground. Gallows regained his footing first and pumped another energy cell into his laser pistol. The great bear rolled onto it's smoking stomach and circled again, clawing at him. Gallows dodged clumsily, trying to stay out of reach. Eventually it lunged, it's jaws snapping at his throat. He responded with his power fist, knocking out a few of it's teeth.

The thing roared as he backed away, once again opening up on it's head and shoulders with his laser pistol. The bear turned away from the fire, exposing it's side. Gallows took the opening and stepped forward, kicking it in the gut, it's ribs breaking under the power armour assist.

It's ribs burning in pain, the Yao Guai decided that the man wasn't worth the trouble and began to back away, but Gallows wasn't done. He moved forward with another knockout punch, dropping it to the ground, dazed. He put his laser pistol against the side of it's head and pulled the trigger burning a hole through it's skull, and killing it instantly.

Then he went back to work trying to find the trail, well aware of the precious seconds ticking away.

The chain links rattled as Sarah threw back the gate to the slave pen. The prisoners all piled out offering their quiet thanks. They were a malnourished bunch wearing nothing but rags. They moved into the camp and began to pillage all available food.

The Lone Wanderer was stripping the dead of their ammunition. Sarah watched him bent over his work, his face shielded by his blonde hair. He dismantled an assault rifle and pulled out a small spring. Spread out beside him was his Chinese assault rifle, also dismantled. He swapped the part in for the worn-out version and put his own rifle back together, testing it by putting a few rounds into a nearby tree.

Then he walked up to her and took back his sniper rifle, examining it with those cold blue eyes. "let's move."

She followed him over to the large tunnel entrance. A small door she had missed in her first examination was embedded in a wall beside the grate.

He opened it, step through, and lead her down a small hallway into the tunnel. A railcart was sitting on the tracks, lit by several gas lanterns.

The Wanderer stepped onto the railcart. He turned back to Sarah. "Last chance."

Sarah nodded. She looked through the grate out to the capital wasteland. She had lived in it for almost all of her life. The thought of leaving it was…worrying at the very least. She thought of her father, sitting alone at his desk, trying desperately to hold the Brotherhood together without her support. The image tugged at her heartstrings.

As she stared at the now welcoming sunlit rocks of the wastes, her plan to accompany the Lone Wanderer eroding rapidly. She turned back to him. "I don't even know where we're going…"

"The Pitt."

"Pittsburg…" she mused.

He nodded. "A dangerous place if you have the wrong friends. My sniper rifle is still yours, if you want to go home."

The Sentinel stared ahead into the darkness of the tunnel. "I…"

His hard-edged demeanor faded. He stepped off the cart and patted her on the shoulder. "It's a big decision. Believe me, I faced it the first time I left. We have an hour. think about it."

Sarah nodded and stepped outside.

* * *

She sat on a large rock, looking out across the wasteland, trying to sort the emotional turmoil which had overtaken her. The Wanderer took a seat beside her.

"Are you going to tell me to hurry up?" she snapped.

He replied in a calming voice. "No."

"Do you want me to come along?"

"Don't make that the deciding factor either way."

"I came this far." She said.

"But the journey hasn't started yet." He told her.

"I've been to the Pitt before." She said, "When I was really little." Some of her first memories were of an ugly sky, and rampant misery.

"I know; the Scourge. You'd be surprised what the long-term results were."

"But I grew up here in the wastes. My dad _needs_ my help."

"So stay here. You don't need to prove anything."

She turned to him. "You don't want me along, do you?"

"No."

"Why not? You always work alone. Why haven't you ever had a partner? Or any allies? Why are you always alone?"

He didn't answer.

"Is it about your dad? Or something in the vault?"

The Wanderer seemed to freeze. "We don't know each other well enough for you to ask that question."

Sarah could practically feel the temperature lowering as he dropped the sniper rifle on the ground beside her.

"Make your choice, Sarah Lyons. I'm leaving in ten minutes." he stood and stalked away. She watched his retreating back.

Sarah recalled a moment in the citadel three years before. She had been walking past her fathers quarters, and heard him recording a private log. His words had shot straight through her heart.

…_Here I sit, in the safety of the Citadel, while the people of the Wasteland thirst, and suffer, and die. Here I sit, a failed, feeble old man. What have I really accomplished? How many have I truly helped? The Super mutants still roam rampant. The people still die of thirst and radiation. The Western Elders cease to acknowledge my existence…_

The Wanderer, for all his faults, despite all that was said, was helping her father. He was helping her.

Since he surfaced, the people's thirst had been quenched, the Supermutants had been driven back, and the wasteland, for the first time since the brotherhood had first arrived, had real hope for the future.

Everything Sarah had spent her life fighting for. Everything her father fought for...

He was making it happen. He fought harder for it, and he fought by himself.

* * *

Ten minutes later, the Wanderer stepped onto the small cart. Long ago had had a friend install a small motor on what used to be a handcart. He opened a small bag of energy cells and inserted one into the makeshift motor. One cell carried a fully loaded cart for a full day. A vast improvement, considering it used to be a handcart. He set about his preparations, tying rations onto the sides of the cart, and setting up a small blanket across the top, as well as one of the lamps.

The side door opened, and an apologetic Sarah Lyons stepped through. He looked up at her, halfway through tightening one of the ropes.

"I'm coming with you." she said.

He continued to tighten the rope. "Why?"

She shrugged. "I…thought you might like the company?"

He blinked a couple times, confused by the obvious dodge. Eventually he filed it away for later consideration. "Get on the cart."

She obeyed and took a seat near the front. He pushed several buttons on the engine and the thing whined into action, jerking forward. Sarah turned and watched the wasteland slowly shrink behind her. Ahead lay only the darkness of the tunnel, and the land her own father had devastated nearly two decades before.


	9. Chapter 9

Modus Operandi 9

Even in the dark, small tunnel, the wanderer found excuses to disappear. The cart moved at a swift jogging speed, but he was still able to disappear into the darkness ahead of it for an hour or more, and somehow _keep_ ahead of it. He had told her that back when their vehicle was powered by hand, the trip would have taken three weeks. It had been cut to six days since the engine was installed. That was comforting; the claustrophobic umbilical cord she was trapped in was a lot shorter than it otherwise might have been.

Silence was something Sarah very quickly grew used to during the long cart ride. The two companions worked in silence, ate in silence, waited in silence. The air in the tunnel was old, stale. It had not moved in two centuries. The walls seemed to press in and she was eternally grateful that she was not claustrophobic.

The Wanderer did not open his mouth unless it was absolutely necessary. He would speak when spoken to, and was polite, but Sarah received the strong impression that he resented her presence as much as the Lyons' Pride would have resented his during one of their operations.

About three days in, she tried to engage him in conversation. The cart was trundling along in the dark, and they were both sitting on the dirty blanket atop it, cross-legged, eating cans of dog food.

"Tell me about the vault." She said.

He paused in mid chew and swallowed what he had, obviously caught off balance by the question. She felt his piercing blue eyes studying her, trying to gauge her intentions. "I didn't see a sunrise for the first nineteen years of my life. That alone should tell you enough."

"Well it doesn't."

"But it should." He echoed.

"But it doesn't." she replied, "what was life like in there?"

He thought for a long time. "Calm. Up till the end."

"That's it?"

"You didn't get shot at on the way to the store!" he replied heatedly, obviously growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. "they taught me math, science, history, classic literature, geography, and one thousand other things. Most of it turned out to be useless. It was dark, smelly, and miserable. Good riddance."

"What about the people?" Sarah asked, trying to direct the conversation to a brighter side.

"Some were good. Some weren't." the Wanderer's face had grown distant, and colder than usual. Sarah suspected she had unearthed some very bad memories.

She said, "tell me about the good ones."

"Well there was Jonas, my dad's assistant. He was beaten to death by the Overseer's thugs the night of my escape. Officer Gomez, who helped me out of a few rough spots. I shot him the same night."

"Why?"

"He was wearing the wrong uniform. And Stanley was a mechanic. He died from a Radroach bite he got during the days after."

She stared. "Do you only remember how they died?"

"What else is there to remember?" he asked. "I don't _want_ to remember _any_ of it. Those who were my friends died. Those who weren't either stabbed me in the back or stabbed me in the front! Are you finished eating yet?"

Sarah looked down at the half-eaten tin of dog food. "No."

"Finish." He commanded, almost angrily. He picked up his rifle and headed into the darkness.

* * *

Long before she ever saw The Pitt, Sarah smelled it. The tunnel was filled with a harsh, chemical scent. Sarah had once seen some of the techs in the citadel using welding equipment. The smell she was experiencing in the tunnel was ten times worse, and on a larger scale. Even the wanderer was holding his bandana over his nose and mouth.

"This city used to be heavy into the steel smelting industry. Add to that the rot and decay of neglect and radiation…this is what you get."

"Its horrible." She said.

"It's better than Point Lookout." The Wanderer told her. "At least here, people used to live and work and thrive; there's something to be made of it. But at Point Lookout…the human world left that place behind a long time ago."

As soon as Sarah saw the sky, she wondered how this Point Lookout place could be any worse. A trader had once told her of a book called _Paradise Lost_. It was about Satan's fall from grace, and the formation of Hell. And the sky above The Pitt was far worse than anything Sarah had been able to imagine for the eternal resting place of the damned. Putrid brown clouds boiled across an angry red sky. The sun could not be seen at all, it's existence was betrayed by a vague light showing through the thinner clouds. It gave the clouds a strange look, as if lit by some inner magic.

Sarah lowered her gaze and beheld a decrepit train yard. Corpses were scattered on the ground all around the railcars. She looked at the nearest one. Three bullet hoels formed a neat equilateral triangle on it's forehead.

"My first visit." The Wanderer said grimly. The corpse was dressed in strange armour. Strange, but not unrecognizeable.

"Is that a raider?"

"They own this city."

Sarah stared at the corpse, the full weight of what she had agreed to hitting her at last.

"Here, the game has a different set of rules." The Wanderer said, slipping off his red bandana and tying on a headwrap. It looked strange on him, hiding his hair, turning him from The Lone Wanderer into just another waster. The only giveaway was his eyes, which he promptly covered up with a pair of sunglasses. With a shock, Sarah realized that if she were walking past him now, she wouldn't have given him a second glance.

_Yes you would have…_she told herself slyly, _but not because he's the Lone Wanderer._

"They know me as a slaver." The Wanderer said. "IT would be best if that ruse continued until I decide to tell them otherwise. Understand?"

"I can keep a secret." She assured him.

"They're lead by a man named Ashur. He wears brotherhood powerarmour. I'm telling you in advance so that when you see it, you keep your mouth shut. It's absolutely necessary."

"Where'd he get brotherhood power armour?" Sarah demanded indignantly. "He's a raider, not a brotherhood soldier."

"Think about the history of the place." The Wanderer responded. "There's no reason he couldn't' be a brotherhood soldier. If we have time, I'll tell you the story. Depending on how this meeting goes, he might tell you himself. If all goes well, we'll be here all of four hours."

"And if all doesn't go well?" she asked, wishing she wasn't.

"We'll be tied to a stake and eaten alive…"

"Eaten alive? By what?" she demanded, but the Wanderer was already walking away.

"Stay close." He ordered. "This area's a radiation maze."

* * *

They came across a three-story bombed out building bearing all the extra slapped-together structures and territorial paint which marked it as a residence of the post apocalyptic denizens.

It was also full of corpses.

Beyond it was a huge rusted steel bridge spanning an enormously wide river. Sarah had kept a very low opinion of the yellow sludge which passed for water in the capital wasteland, but it didn't hold a candle to the substance oozing over the river bed far below.

The bridge was comprised of rusted steel beams. A few corpses had been hung from chains on the top in the classic wasteland raider style; a warning to unwary travelers. She read the words 'Welcome to Pittsburgh' although the second half had been scratched away, leaving only 'Welcome to Pitt'. An unsteady hand had painted the word 'The' between 'To' and 'Pitt' leaving 'Welcome to the Pitt'. It was hanging in a lopsided fashion, and gave Sarah a sense of great unease.

On the far side of the bridge lay alien metal hulks which in a bygone age had stood as the buildings in Pittsburg. Even from this distance, she could hear it creak and groan as wind and weather caused it to settle.

Not wanting to always be the follower, Sarah started over the bridge. It was covered in debris and derelict cars to the point where she could barely see the cracked pavement beneath. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling her back.

"Let me lead." The Wanderer directed. He bent down to a pile of debris she was about to put her foot down on, and swept it away, revealing the frag mine carefully placed beneath.

Sarah's breathing stopped; she had nearly stepped on it. Nearly lost her leg…

"The entire bridge is boobytrapped. Walk where I walk. If you can, stay on the cars." He began to hop from car to car with almost balletic movements. Sarah followed clumsily, not entirely trusting the rusted frames to support her weight.

They managed halfway across the bridge without incident when a wide gap opened up between two cars. Seven proximity mines had been placed between them in order to discourage the very thing the two travelers were about to attempt. The Wanderer to a small run-up and cleared the gap with relative ease. Sarah backed up and ran, willing her legs to propel her to the other side. She landed clumsily on the rear end of a car, and felt herself falling backwards. Almost in slow motion, she watched the wanderer drop his modified assault rifle and dash towards her, his hand reaching out to grab her.

He caught the edge of her sleeve with his fist and pulled them both to safety.

Even as he let her get her balance, she heard the sharp report of a sniper rifle. The round hit him in the side, spilling him over onto the pavement beside the car. Sarah's reflexes, honed by years of fighting Supermutants, made her roll to the other side. A second shot pinged off the hood of the car, where she'd been sitting not a moment before.

Adrenaline began pumping through her veins. She realized with a shock that one hit would probably kill her; she wasn't wearing her amour. She felt naked, exposed. Not quite helpless, but pretty close. She had never entered open combat without the power armour and it's protective metal cocoon. She glanced to her left and spotted a frag mine she'd nearly sat on. More bullets pounded into the hood of the car in front of her.

"Sarah!" she heard the Wanderer yell. His Chinese Assault Rifle clattered to the ground on her other side. She picked it up. A few minutes later he rolled across the back end of the car, picking up the frag mine and tossing it over the side of the bridge.

Blood was seeping from a hole in his duster, just under his armpit. She could tell he was having trouble breathing.

"Why didn't you tell me there were snipers?" she demanded.

"Didn't think they'd shoot at me." He answered. "I'm one of them, afterall."

He steadied his sniper rifle against the door of the car and fired two shots. "One sniper down. Two left."

The vehicle the companions were using for cover jerked suddenly as something in the front end exploded. They glanced at eachother, then he pulled Sarah to her feet and half pushed, half threw her over the side of the metal railing which separated foot traffic from the road. He turned and ran in the opposite direction. The last thing Sarah saw as she rolled to safety was the Lone Wanderer disappearing behind an enormous mushroom cloud.

* * *

Mex the Raider had a boring job, as jobs in the Pitt went. He was to watch the city gates, day in, day out, and investigate any suspicious noises. Two weeks had gone by with no incidents at all. Not even a single runaway he could paste with his Infiltrator assault rifle. So the enormous string of explosions was a more than welcome relief. The bridge was a tangled mess. The sniper perch so carefully constructed years before had fallen to street-level, killing all three occupants. But that didn't bother him. He was too excited by the results.

It looked as if every single mine, and every single car had blown up all in one big boom, sending debris miles into the sky (it was still landing around him), and peppering the steel structure of the bridge with shrapnel. He smiled. Explosions were entertaining, and he wished he could have seen this one first hand.

To top the morning off he found, lolling behind a railing, a blonde beauty with nice legs and perfect tits. The blast had left her dazed and helpless, a small stream of blood seeping from her ears and nostrils. But that could be cleaned up. And, with approval from the Boss, she would serve as his entertainment. He threw her over his shoulder and began the short march back to the gatehouse.

If he had listened hard over the clinking sounds of the cooling metal, he would have heard, covered by debris, the sound of a Geiger counter slowly ticking it's way to the four-hundred mark. To top it off, the sun took a small amount of time to peek through the fetid clouds.

Wandering through the wasteland did have it's perks…


	10. Chapter 10

Modus Operandi 10

Nine raiders. All dead. All lying in a circle around the firepit. Weapons and ammo scrounged…

Both Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer had come this way.

Gallows was infuriated by the difficulty he had in tracking them. It had eaten up his precious time. Sarah did not weigh much, and was negotiating very rocky terrain. Her footprints were damned near invisible. As for the Wanderer, if it weren't for the constant stream of dead enemies, Gallows would never have suspected that the reclusive man had passed through the territory at all.

It was midnight of her third day. According to brotherhood rules, he should have been heading back, but Gallows was determined to find them.

On the ground before him, set apart from the dead raiders, was a disassembled assault rifle. He could see which parts had been swapped and replaced.

An empty slave pen spoke volumes about the Wanderer's mission, so Gallows thought, and perhaps why Sarah had accompanied him.

He backtracked to the point at which he'd last seen Sarah's footprints. They lead to a small side-door embedded the mouth of an enormous tunnel, obviously man made. An iron grill blocked casual entry. Here the soil was softer and he was able to easily read the trail. There were three sets of her tracks, all packed down on top of one another. The bottom layer was her tracks, going in. the middle layer were her tracks going out. He followed them to a large rock, and back to the cave entrance, where she'd walked back in. Gallows opened the door, shouldered through the side passage, and surveyed the tunnel. It extended into complete darkness, and the soldier's sixth sense told him that it was far longer than any subway tunnel in the capital wasteland.

"You're a little late." Said a harsh, guttural voice. "Twelve hours to be more precise."

Gallows immediately unslung his Laser rifle and ducked into the doorway, scanning the darkness.

"You seek Sarah Lyons and the Lone Wanderer, yes?" the voice asked.

"Reveal yourself!" Gallows commanded.

"No. I don't think I will." The voice responded in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I refuse to bargain with those I can't see."

"Then perhaps it is a good thing I'm not here to bargain. I'm merely passing on a message from the Lone Wanderer in case you to tracked her this far."

Gallows relaxed slightly. "The Lone Wanderer is an ally. Therefore you are too."

There was a pause. "I doubt it. At the other end of this tunnel is the Pitt. They've gone there on business. To follow on foot means a two month journey. I don't think you've the supplies for that."

Gallows' heart sank. The faceless voice was right; he didn't. He barely had the rations to continue searching as it was.

"I'd report back to elder Lyons if I were you." It suggested.

"What are they doing in the Pitt?"

"Stopping the slave trade, and preventing raiders from entering the Capital Wasteland. A worthy pursuit."

"Why did she follow him?" he asked.

"Ask her when they get back. I assume because she is safer with him than on her own?"

"She is safest with the brotherhood!" Gallows responded angrily. "Why would she leave the wasteland?"

His emotion was not directed at the voice, but rather at Sarah, whose choice to leave he felt was a betrayal of her father and the Lyons' Pride.

"Just go home." The voice urged. "Tell elder Lyons. She's _his_ daughter."

"Not until you show your face."

"You would shoot me on sight."

"I will not." Gallows promised, reading his Laser rifle.

There was no reply.

"I'm not moving until you show yourself." Gallows told it.

Still the darkness failed to produce a face. He fired a few shots into it at random. In response, a large rock sailed out of the inky blackness at high speed and smashed his visor, blinding him. He heard the sound of a huge shape rushing towards him, and was thrown bodily against the iron grill.

By the time he managed to wrestle his helmet off and retrieve his weapons, his assailant was gone. But a large set of Supermutant tracks had been pounded into the ground, spoiling Sarah's.

* * *

Elder Owyn Lyons sat down carefully in the Great Hall, otherwise known as the briefing room. Scribe Rothchild took a seat beside him. Sitting in various positions around the tables was the Lyons' Pride, or those bits of it which could still fight. Gallows was standing in the middle of the room. The air in the room was thick and heavy, the loss of their leader had taken a visible toll on the Lyons' Pride; their armour was unpolished, they kept their heads down, and seemed to be acting more like schoolchildren caught cheating than soldiers in a debriefing.

"You failed to find my daughter." Lyons observed, his heart already sunk as low as it could go.

"Not completely." Gallows said. "I know where she is, I just can't get to her."

The leaden depression which had settled over the room seemed to lift slightly. The Pride straightened up, listening with keen interest.

"How did she escape the Supermutants?" Rothchild asked.

"The Wanderer saved her." The black ops specialist reported.

The depression disappeared, replaced by an almost palpable feeling of intense relief. Owyn sat back and for the first time in three days, allowed himself to smile. He felt Rothchild's hand pat him on the shoulder reassuringly. The Wanderer had never let them down before.

"He saved her?" Lyons leaned forward, wanting details.

"He used an assault rifle and slaughtered the Supermutants and a Deathclaw, all of which were chasing her. I'm confident that Sentinel Lyons is in no immediate danger."

"Sunnuva bitch." Paladin Kodiak whistled.

"What? I could do all that." Dusk bragged.

"With a Fat Man…" Colvin said in the special whisper which carried all around the room. "…from a hundred and fifty yards away."

Glade laughed. He was technically still on medical leave, unfit for combat. However with the aid of a cane he was able to walk, and had attended the briefing along with everyone else.

"When is she coming home?" Scribe Rothchild asked.

"That's the bad news…"Gallows coughed and continued, aware of the suddenly hostile eyes of his comrades. He sighed. "It appears that the Wanderer was in the middle of…his own affairs when he rescued Sarah. For some reason, he's gone north to Pittsburg."

"What?" Kodiak's mouth was hanging open. "Why? There's nothing there! Nothing worth going there for, anyway…"

"Nothing _confirmed_." Rothchild corrected. "None of our scouting attempts since the scourge have returned."

"And Sarah is with him?" Owyn asked, his voice silencing the group, all of whom had begun to talk amongst themselves.

"Affirmative." Replied Gallows.

All members of the briefing stared thoughtfully at the floor.

"Waaaaait a second." Colvin said, shifting position in his chair, "if they're up in the Pitt right now, who'd you hear this from?"

"That's the other piece of bad news." Gallows said grimly. "It appears the Our Messiah has at least one supermutant ally."

This revelation was greeted with shocked silence. The Dusk began to laugh. "Oh, c'mon!" she said, glancing around the room, "look, I don't like the man, but we all know he's handed in at least half as many blood samples to Tristan as all the rest of us combined. Why would he ally with a mutie?"

"Twice." Said Rothchild.

"What?"

"Twice as many." The scribe repeated. "You've been neglecting your quotas of late."

"You're shitting me." Dusk repeatedly dryly.

"No. it's all down in the logs. When he handed them in, and how many."

"Lets get back to the matter at hand." Paladin Glade said, heading off the inevitable protests. "Elder Lyons, your daughter is in the Pitt. What do you wish of us?"

Owyn sat forward, staring thoughtfully at Gallows, his hands brought together as if praying. He began to speak "Long before we ever settled here and entered this eternal war with the Supermutants, we were ordered by the High Elders in California to find the Capitol Wasteland and retrieve any technology found there. On the way there, we came across the steel town of Pittsburg."

He sighed, an unpleasant memory coming back to haunt him. "We destroyed it, attempted to wipe it clean of any and all mutated creatures, including people. We stripped it of all useful technology, slaughtered almost the entire population, took those few healthy humans we could find, and let the radiation cleanse the rest. We left it in a state of ruin more complete and unfit for life than it ever had been before we first came."

"Not the way I remember it." Kodiak said. "You were saviours, coming in to rid the place of crime and povert and everything. The scourge was the best thing to happen to it."

"You were very young, and we have spent our time feeding you propaganda about the righteousness of the brotherhood, and our cause." Lyons admitted. "It is only natural that you remember it differently.

Greg 'Kodiak' Bear opened and shut his mouth several times, then stared blankly at the floor. Colvin leaned over and patted him on the back, trying to reassure him.

"Owyn!" Rothchild snapped. "This is not-"

"They need to understand the history of this place!" Lyons replied heatedly. "And why it is that the Wanderer is going back _now_."

Jaws dropped all around the room.

"You already knew, sir?" Glade asked sharply.

"Two weeks ago, the Wanderer came to me in private. He told me of his first visit to the Pitt. During the Scourge, we lost a few Paladins. One of them was a man by the name of Ishmael Ashur. He is listed in our database as Missing In Action."

"Just like Sarah." Glade murmured, gently urging the ageing man to speed up.

"It appears," said Lyons, while Rothchild shot the Paladin a glare, "that he has taken the ruins of Pittsburgh and hammered them into civilization. Not a kind one; It runs on the blood of Slaves. Many of whom are taken from our own capital wasteland. You all have taken note of the fact that Raiders keep finding their way back to this wasteland even though you have cleaned them out again and again and again?"

There Pride nodded.

"The Wanderer had a theory that they come from the Pitt. He was in the North trying to confirm it. If he has left for the Pitt, I can only assume that he has confirmed it, and is going to do what is necessary to protect the wasteland."

"Why wasn't I informed of this?" Gallows demanded. "It may have helped me."

"I did not expect him to encounter Sarah." Lyons told him. "Believe me, if I had known this was coming, I would have done things differently."

"_He_ can probably handle the Pitt, but what does that mean for Sarah?" Colvin asked. "She's walking into a radiation filled slave city run by Raiders. That does not sound healthy."

Murmurs of agreement sounded through the group.

"I will not order any of my Knights to walk into that place again. It is very likely that none of you would come back." Lyons said. "However I will order you to go north and await their return. Take as many supplied as you need, hold there until they come back. Then retrieve my daughter and bring her home."

"A thought occurs to me, Owyn." Rothchild said, taking a seat beside his friend. They watched the Lyons' Pride file out.

"And what is that, Reginald?"

"Is it possible that all that we have done here to clean up the Capital Wasteland is merely penance for what we did to Pittsburgh?"

"A thought occurs to me, Reginald." Elder Lyons said, leaning back in his chair. To his old friend, he looked more exhausted than ever before.

"And what is that, Owyn?"

"That you are far too perceptive."


	11. Chapter 11

Modus Operandi 11

_Sarah held her father's hand and watched another explosion blossom in the city below. Smoke curled up from a hundred fires. The sky was black with smog and death. The shouts and screams of hundreds of voices rose into the sky in one maddening plea for mercy. Flashes for light flickered through the streets as the brotherhood soldiers hunted the irradiated civilians, men, women, and children, corralled them, and slaughtered them like rats. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burnt flesh. Her father, his blonde hair waving in the breeze created by the extreme heat, looked on in approval._

"_Our standing orders, Sarah?"_

_Another quiz. "Prospect, Preserve, Research, and Restorate." Sarah rattled off the four words._

"_Their meaning?"_

"_Find old-world technology, repair it, keep it in good shape, study it, and use it." She said._

"_For what purpose?"_

"_Increasing the strength of the Brotherhood of Steel."_

"_So that we can…?"_

_She watched as a small child, no more than seven years old was gunned down by the onslaught of brotherhood soldiers. "So that we can bring back the old world."_

"_Correct. Tell me of the Chain That Binds."_

"_The Chain Which Binds-"_

"_The Chain __**That **__Binds." her father corrected gently._

"_Daddy!" Sarah moaned._

"_Tell me." He insisted._

"_The Chain That Binds is the cornerstone of our organization, the rock that supports the great tree of the Brotherhood and its myriad branches. It holds that orders are to flow from on high down through the ranks. An order from a superior must always be obeyed, that their wisdom may be carried out without hesitation."_

"_And what else?"_

"_Orders are to observe the flow and not skip ranks."_

"_And a superior?"_

"_A superior may only give orders to his direct subordinates, and not to those beneath them. In this way harmony of intent and cohesion of thought is maintained." Sarah finished. Her father reached down and smiled, ruffling her tin blonde hair._

"_Well done, Sarah."_

_She beamed._

_They stood upon the top of the building called Haven, overlooking the plaza. Mini-nukes exploded around the edges, creating giant craters. Fences had been constructed blocking all the alleyways. And hiding behind them, brotherhood soldiers, readying __gatling lasers, missile launchers, and Fatman mini-nuke launchers. The people flowed from the mouth of the wide street opposite. Owyn Lyons smiled, watching with pride. He had planned it this way, had his daughter help organize it. Used it as a lesson to teach her how to think tactically and plan an operation. _

_Sarah watched as the civilians flooded into the plaza only to find all their exits blocked. They filled it from edge to edge, packed together._

_The sound of heavy __armoured feet made Sarah look backwards. Thirty brotherhood soldiers dressed in shining power armour, carrying Nuke Launchers and Missile Launchers stepped up to the edge of the building._

"_Ready!" Star Paladin Lyons called. They loaded their weapons. Sarah watched as the civilians below caught sight of the soldiers and attempted to flow back into the mouth of the street, where a line of brotherhood soldiers was waiting to gun them down._

"_Aim!" Lyons called. The soldiers on the roof raised their weapons. The people began climbing over one another like rats. In the mouth of the street, the gatling lasers had formed a wall of bodies which grew ever higher._

"_Fire!" Lyons ordered._

_The mini-nukes rained down upon the crowd, filling the plaza with bright yellow and red. Smoke and dust rose to the second story of the Haven and hung below Sarah; a boiling sea of brown and gray._

"_Light'em up!" Lyons ordered. Sarah listened to the instruction being carried down the line. In the alleyways, the brotherhood soldiers armed with gatling lasers stood and began firing into the clouds. The plaza was filled with criss-crossing lasers so thick that Sarah could actually make out the silouettes of people as they were gunned down, their screams carried to the heavens and beyond. There was no way anything in the plaza could have survived._

_Sarah glanced up at one of t__he soldiers standing beside her. He was carrying a rocket launcher, though his finger was off the trigger, and had a look of absolute disgust on his face as he watched the slaughter._

_All at once it ended. The smoke cleared, revealing the ocean of blood beneath, unidentifiable bits floating in it._

_Lyons turned to the brotherhood soldier beside Sarah. "Well done, Sentinel Ashur. Move on to the steel mill and cleanse it."_

_The soldier hesitated._

"_Is there a problem?" Lyons asked._

_He gestured down at the plaza. "Was this absolutely necessary, sir?"_

"_Prospect, Preserve, Research, and Restorate__." Lyons reeled off. "There is nothing in our mandate which mentions the protection of human lives. Our mission is to acquire the technology no matter the human costs. Everyone knows how to make more babies, but a plasma rifle…that's a lost art. Besides, look at this place." He waved his arms at the utter destructionwhich lay beyond the sea of blood. "What was there to save? Now you've been given a direct order. Get it done!"_

"_Yessir." The man named Ashur saluted and disappeared._

"_Rothchild!" Lyons called._

"_I'm here."_

_Sarah's father turned to confront the middle-aged scribe, whose hair was just beginning to show gray streaks. Her father said, "Move in your scribes and collect anything useful. We're moving south in three days' time."_

_Rothchild nodded and __moved away to hand out instructions._

_Sarah's father grabbed a soldier at ramdom. "What is your name?"_

"_Initiate Glade, sir." The man saluted, shouldering a minigun. He could not have been more than twenty years old. His face was covered in filth, and he was villanously unshaven._

"_Take my daughter below, would you?" Lyons requested._

_The young man looked down at Sarah. She gazed intently back up at him. "Very well, sir." He took her hand. "Come on, squire."_

"_I'm going to be a knight one day." Sarah told him proudly as he led her off the roof._

"_I bet. You can't be more than five years old, though."_

"_I'm four." Sarah said indignantly._

"_A little young to be watching all that…" the knight muttered._

"_Why not?" Sarah asked conversationally, "It's what we do. Saving civilians isn't part of the code."_

* * *

Sarah awoke with a start. Consciousness greeted her with a pounding headache and severe nausea. The resurfaced memories were causing the added discomfort of emotional sickness. How had she ever been able to think like that? How had her father…?

Twenty three years…now she was back…

Damn the Wanderer! Damn hi-

Sarah's inner eye watched the Lone Wanderer vanish behind an enormous mushroom cloud.

He was dead.

It was all too much. There were too many emotions, too fast. She felt as if her head would burst, and half wished it so.

In order to stave off the inevitable confrontation with her own conscience, she tried to bring herself back to the present, and take stock. A bandage had been wrapped around her head. The ceiling above was orange and cracked. The bed she'd been placed on was no more than a wire grid hanging from a rusty frame.

"Glad to see you're awake." A familiar voice said. Sarah recognized it from the distant past. With great effort she turned her head and beheld a face.

A face she had seen not minutes before albeit in one of her earliest memories. It was a face which had changed with age, but was still recognizable through the dust and grime and muck.

Sentinel Ishmael Ashur leaned forward, a smile of pleasure painting his features. "Sarah Lyons…if were not for the dogtags, I would not have recognized you at all. I Can only guess that you never expected me to see them."

His smile disappeared at was replaced with the quiet focused anger of those who have kept a grudge bottled up for decades. He said, "You cannot imagine how hard it has been, waiting for this moment."

* * *

**Hey, thanks for sticking with it so far.**

**Okay, so we're just into the double digits, so it's about time for an author interlude.**

**This story is a compilation of a number of different ideas I've had surrounding the Fallout 3 universe. I've tried my best to stick to the characters and make them act as they would in-game. Whether or not I have succeeded thus far is up to you, and if you have any feedback in that direction (or any other) I would love to hear it.**

**This is probably one of the darkest chapters in the story so far, but it solves a few problems I had with The Pitt DLC and Ashur's story. It always struck me as odd that Elder Lyons was so willing to help the capital wasteland, yet only a few years before he'd entered the wasteland, he's seen the Pitt, and simply ripped it to shreds. I feel his actions make sense if he is trying to make up for what he did to the Pitt by saving the capital wasteland. ****Whether it's true or not, it makes his character more interesting to me at least. **

**I understand that the events in this chapter may make you sympathetic to Ashur, and the Pitt (it certainly did me). And if so, then it means I've done my job right. The Fallout world was always more complex than simple good versus evil, and that is one of the issues I hope to confront over the course of this story.**

**I know the chapters are short, and I apologize, but it's simply my writing style. I find that a shorter chapter means I can keep up with both speed and quality. Chapters have to be Long, Good, and Fast, but most authors can only do two out of three, and I am no exception.**

**It also might be going overboard to choose a theme song for one's fanfiction, but I spent much of my time listening to '****Eulogy of a Ghost' by the band Clutch, so I guess that's it.**

**Anyway, I'll post more author notes occasionally if anything else occurs to me.**


	12. Chapter 12

Modus Operandi 12

The ride in the Vertibird was long, bumpy, and uncomfortable, especially for Paladin Glade, who had elected to accompany the Lyons' Pride despite his wound. The Vertibirds could technically reach anywhere in the wasteland, but fuel was scarce, and the brotherhood only used them on the missions of the utmost urgency.

Under Knight Captain Gallows' reaction, they landed a short distance away from the tunnel mouth. The Pride filed out, grabbed their supplies, and took shelter in the steel structures, not sure what to expect. The bodies of the dead raiders were still lying in the sand around the firepit, unmoved.

The smell forced them to move directly to the tunnel entrance. After that, there was nothing to do but wait.

* * *

Ashur sat back and examined Sarah. "You've grown into quite a beautiful young woman. I'll be sure to pass my congratulations on to your father when I see him."

Sarah tucked her knees in and sat on the bed, staring back at the ghost. It was clad in brotherhood power-armour, just as the Lone Wanderer had said, except that this armour was different. It had been painted in red and yellow tribal colours. The left shoulder pad had been lost, and the man had replaced it with a Brahmin skull. Haphazard repairs and modifications had been performed across the board, creating a sacrilegious Frankenstein mockery of the clean elegant brotherhood armour.

The outcasts had repainted their armour, but the few tense moments when the Pride had encountered them in the ruins, Sarah had noticed that they still treated their armour with a certain amount of reverence and respect.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked hoarsely.

"Eventually." Said Ashur. "Your father and his brotherhood are going to follow you here, I've no doubt. How you came to be on the bridge at that point in time is a mystery, but one I intend to solve quickly. I don't think you're here to reconnoiter. You'd have been dressed in power armour. But we'll get to that later. In the meantime tell me," Ashur inquired casually, "I ask only out of innocent curiosity, what rank are you now?"

"Sentinel." Sarah whispered. The shock, as well as the severity of her situation had left her almost speechless.

"It pays to be the child of the man on top…" the ghost observed, laughing sardonically.

"I was just committed to the brotherhood, and what we stood for."

"Indeed." The raider king smiled. "and are you still committed?"

"The cause has changed."

"Oh yes, I heard about the split." Ashur commented. "A minor quarrel. And I have no doubt that as soon as your father and his ilk have finished reaping the benefits of the purifier; they'll turn on the population and slaughter them to take it back east. I know you say you're protecting the people now, but I don't believe a word of it. Not after the slaughter in the plaza. The brotherhood are murderers. Nothing more. You do not build, you do not create. You only stave off what has already occurred."

Sarah flinched involuntarily as the memories of the scourge came flooding back.

Ashur noted her reaction and sat back in his chair, a curious expression on his face. He kept up his barrage, though. "Do you remember the night before the slaughter, Sarah? Your dad sat you down on the table and asked you-" his voice changed to a vindictive, whiny imitation of her father's comforting tones, "- ' Okay Sarah, where should we place the fences to direct them down the street?' and you said-"

"Stop it!" Sarah screamed as more painful memories flowed back. "He's trying to make up for it now!" she was on the verge of tears. "_I'm_ trying to make up for it now. We've been in the wasteland for twenty years sacrificing blood and bone and steel keeping the mutants at bay; trying to give the civilians a chance! Twenty years trying to pay penance! Trying to leave a good legacy…"

"Legacy?" the king spat the word with such venom that she flinched again. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and dragged her painfully across the room to the door. He pushed her outside into the hallway and then grabbed her wrist and pulled her along behind him. His power-armoured grip was tight, cutting off circulation to her hand, but she didn't dare complain. She tripped once or twice, but he dragged her along regardless. As he lead her along a myriad of passageways, and down a flight of stairs, she passed raider after raider, all heavily armed, all dirty, and all looking at her with the same distaste with which they might have regarded an insect.

At last, his path led them to a large foyer, ringed by a pair of grand staircases leading to the second floor. At the far end was an elegant door, twisted and decrepit with age. He opened it and directed her through.

She knew this place.

They stood side by side on the stone steps of Haven, overlooking the very same plaza as had been in her dream. Even now she could see the phantom shapes of people desperately struggling to escape the corral. And the Brotherhood soldiers on the roof slaughtering them without mercy.

The pavement was black, cracked and pitted, covered in a hundred craters all made by mini-nukes. A fence still ran around the outside, though it had long-since bent and rusted out.

In her entire life, Sarah had never beheld a more alien, nor a more hostile place. Nowhere in the DC ruins, not even at Adams Airforce Base, the last refuge of the East-Coast Enclave.

Ashur directed her gaze to the center of the plaza, where a hideous effigy had been constructed using rebar and other wires. Heavy chains held it to the ground by a large collar. To either side, gouts of flame flashed, reminding Sarah of the explosions she'd seen in her dreams. It was wet with fresh blood, and the entrails of living people had been stuffed inside, giving the look of a freshly skinned man. It was on its knees, long spidery arms out to either side in the utterly defeated stance of a man who had begged the gods and received no response, whose last ditch chance had failed.

"It's yours." Ashur said with immense satisfaction. "And your father's. Oh, I do hope he likes it. It's the brotherhood's legacy."

* * *

They had put her in a side room in Haven. She was seen to daily by a doctor called Phantom. He was civil. By far the most civil raider she'd ever encountered. If anyone had asked her one week beforehand, she would have said that the two terms were completely accurate, yet the man was as gentle as any of her brotherhood allies would have been, and treated her injuries with a quiet professionalism that many new recruits could have stood to learn from.

"Were you born here?" she asked.

"Naw." Phantom chuckled. His voice was stained with the rough accent she'd come to recognize in raiders, but he made the most of it. "Ye can tell the ones who're born in heya. Dey's the ones who're missin' skin, or got seven toes and an extra eye. Dey don't get ta live in Haven. Da boss wants-." He stopped and sighed "Anyway no, I wasn't born here."

Sarah was allowed out into the Pitt, under strict supervision, of course, and she soon found out exactly what he meant. Most of the raiders in the Pitt were suffering from advanced radiation poisoning. Their skin was cracked, peeling, and in some cases, missing completely. Most of them were festooned with sores.

The slaves were worse. Sarah, under the uncomfortably close supervision of an unpleasant woman named Lulu, was allowed into a place called downtown, where she bore witness to the horrific conditions of the slaves. Dressed in less than rags, and fed on the flesh of the recently dead mutants, they worked day in, day out cutting steel, moving it from place to place, and feeding the fires of the Pitt's industrial growth.

It was there that she met the slave leader Midea, and learned of the last time someone had wandered freely into The Pitt.

"It was three years ago." The woman said, pouring both herself and Sarah a glass of dirty irradiated water. "He was five and three-quarters feet tall. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, about your age, a real looker."

Even before she'd finished, Sarah knew exactly who she was talking about. She kept quiet, though. "What did he do?"

"We had a plan." Midea said, glancing at the door. The Raider was listening closely. The fact that the slaves had attempted a revolt was no secret, Sarah had often heard the raiders discussing it. Phantom had given her some details, but she had yet to hear the slaves side. "You see, I had a friend named Werhner. I can't give you any details on how-"

"It gets you whipped." Lulu said happily.

"But essentially, this blonde bastard walked into the Pitt, cooperated until he knew all the details of the plan, and turned on us." Midea sighed. "We had a chance to free this entire city from Ashur's clutches, and lost it because we chose the wrong champion."

"There had to be more to it than that." Sarah reasoned. That didn't sound like the same Lone Wanderer who had walked into paradise falls and slaughtered the slavers to the last man. "Why would he do that?"

Midea shrugged. "Why does anyone do anything? You follow your code, and follow your conscious. This asshole just didn't have one."

_He did, though. _Sarah thought. _He did have a conscience_.There had to be a reason the slaves weren't aware of. Something Ashur had planned, perhaps. Sarah tried her best to remember the Wanderer's words the morning after he'd rescued her from the supermutants. He'd mentioned something about a plan...

It didn't matter anymore. The Lone Wanderer was dead, and Sarah had her own troubles.


	13. Chapter 13

Modus Operandi 13

Dusk crouched in the doorway of the tunnel entrance, scanning the nighttime landscape wasteland with her sniper rifle. For the sixth time, she caught a flash of orange, but it disappeared before she could fire a shot. She cursed. It was the sixth time it had done this! She frowned inside her helmet. A Supermutant was out there somewhere. And it knew that there were humans inside the tunnel. It's behavior made that fact disturbingly clear. Otherwise it would have wandered off. Yet it had not yet attacked. This was not regular Supermutant behavior. She very carefully made her way inside the tunnel to the other side of the grill, where the rest of the Pride was camped out.

"Wake up, guys. We got a mutie."

"How many?" Glade asked, while the rest of the squad pulled themselves unwillingly from slumber.

"Just one that I can see."

"So go kill it."

"I can't," Dusk mumbled quietly, hoping Colvin wouldn't hear, "it's too good."

"Dusk? Beaten? By a single Supermutant?" Colvin asked, waking up, "well _I_ Never! …Called it years ago."

"Sleep to Sarcasm in less than a minute," Kodiak responded, rising from the ground, "you're getting fast, Colvin."

"Dusk just gives me so much practice," Colvin muttered happily, checking to make sure his laser rifle was loaded.

"Quiet," Glade ordered, getting to his feet. Because of his wounds, he had neglected to take along his minigun, but instead had opted for a laser rifle. "Dusk only saw one, but there might be more, so stay frosty. Move slowly at five pace intervals. Use cover, and keep your eyes open."

"Yak yak yak..." Colvin affirmed.

They filed out into the wastes and followed Dusk's directions. They moved quietly and slowly from tree to tree, Gallows and Dusk on the outside, Kodiak and Glade in the middle ready to bunker down and provide a base of fire if the fighting got heavy. As they moved deeper into the forest, the trees grew thicker, the terrain less negotiable, and the Pride were forced to dispose of the five-pace interval plan and travel in one big clump to prevent being completely separated.

Ten minutes passed with no sightings.

Glade turned to Dusk "are you sure you saw one?" he asked.

"I...yes," she answered uncertainly.

"Woke me up for nothing…" Colvin sighed theatrically, "how did you make it past recruit?"

"Shut up Colvin!" Dusk snapped as they split to circle a large rock

Gallows stopped dead and crouched, examining the ground closely. The Pride gathered around him, doing their best to tread lightly in case they were stepping on anything he might find useful.

He stopped and looked up, appearing to sniff the air. Then he took off in a direction which seemed, to the others at least, to be completely random.

Gallows followed the tracks. The mutant had made a nearly successful attempt to hide them, but Gallows had been hunting the creatures for long enough to recognize it regardless. If it had been anyone else except perhaps the Lone Wanderer, they would have gone completely unnoticed. As he ran, the trail grew heavier; the mutant knew he was being followed, and was attempting to outrun them. Gallows heard the Pride falling far behind him. They never were able to keep up during hunts.

He caught a flash of orange immediately ahead of him, and veered off the path, hunting for high ground. He found it not six feet away in the form of a large boulder. He scaled it in mere seconds and had his rifle shouldered. The crosshairs swept across the nighttime forest until they came to rest upon a large tree. He could just make out a shoulder behind it. He crouched and waited, letting the mutant make the first move, letting him think it had lost them. It peeked its head out…

Then it heard the shouting. The Pride was looking for Gallows, making noise, letting themselves be heard. The head disappeared as the mutant sank further into it's cover, then broke from cover and disappeared from sight. For a split second shorter than the time he needed, Gallows had a headshot opportunity, but he missed, his bullet snapping into the tree just beside the mutant.

Gallows gritted his teeth and put away his rifle, hating his comrades, cursing their existence. They were slow, heavy, loud, and they talked too much. No care was given to subtlety, to patience… to all the skills Gallows used.

"There you are!" He heard Kodiak's voice, but ignored it angrily, dropping from his perch and walking back to the camp, leaving them to search the woods themselves.

This was why he worked alone.

Sarah sat on a broken pedestal in Ashur's office. It used to be a museum of some kind, she guessed. The entire place was full of statues of all kinds. The Raider king insisted she be there. Sarah was tended to under the strict supervision of a man named O-Dog, who called her Meat, but was otherwise fairly civilized.

Day in, day out, she watched raider after raider come to Ashur with their problems. It became very obvious that he was a competent and respected leader, despite his orders usually being contrary to their own desires.

He was a humanitarian, she discovered, who tried to make the best of the situation. He persisted in referring to his slaves as 'workers' and openly lamented the fact that they had to exist at all. Despite the way he treated her personally, Sarah was not blind to the man's sense of honor, or his own moral code.

It was during one of these interviews that a familiar stranger paid them a visit. The noise of Ashur's chair being pushed back made Sarah look up. The King had a bright, genuine smile on his face as he stared at the stranger who had just entered his office.

The man was quite handsome, and stood out from the rest of the raiders. Despite everything, Sarah gave him a second glance. He was slightly over average height, had a handsome chin, and was wearing a headwrap with sunglasses. A heavy dark leather jacket hung on his shoulders with two bandoliers strapped diagonally around his torso. He was wearing a pair of patched jeans and had one of the Pitt's many modified assault rifles strapped on his back.

"Welcome, my friend!" Ashur boomed enthusiastically, "take a seat. When did you arrive?"

The visitor glanced over at her and did his own double take, raising his sunglasses to take a better look. Sarah's lips parted slightly as she stared in shock. It was the Lone Wanderer. She had last seen that face pushing her desperately to safety, vanishing in a cloud of radioactive smoke and blast.

"Just a little while ago," the Wanderer replied, shaking the Raider King warmly by the hand, "Had some troubles with the wildmen. Oh, I have this for Marie," he paused and pulled out a stuffed teddybear.

Ashur took it gladly, all coldness with which he had treated Sarah was gone, "My thanks. She sleeps with these things cradled all around her. It makes Sandra's life that much easier."

The Wanderer smiled. "Glad to hear it."

He had been dead, she was sure of it. Noone could have survived that explosion. _Noone could have!_ Her mind worked quickly, trying to sort through the puzzle.

The Wanderer glanced back at Sarah and passed a silent message onto her: you don't know me right now. Act the part or we're both dead. Out loud he said: "One of these things is not like the others…"

"She is a…lucky find," Ashur said, "The gatekeeper found her on the bridge, nearly unconscious."

"She's beautiful," the Wanderer replied, this comment sounding far more genuine than anything he had said previously during their conversation. Sarah felt herself blush and she quickly looked down at her feet.

"She is not a toy." Ashur explained to the Wanderer, "She is a member of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"Ah," even though Sarah knew the Wanderer was lying, she still found the tone of his voice offensive, "I know of them. They've done some amount of good for the capital wasteland, but I really don't have the time or patience to deal with them or their so-called codes. The world is a dirty place and sometimes dirty deeds must be done in order to further the human race."

Ashur began to laugh, "My friend, you and I must choose to disagree. I regret that you did not know them twenty years ago. That was exactly their attitude. In this very place, they slaughtered countless innocents for a few trinkets."

The Wanderer thought this out, "Then they appear to have changed, unfortunately. They are at war with the Supermutants, trying to save us all." He threw his hands up sarcastically, "A bunch of fools!"

"The Wanderer is the worst of them." Ashur said. "Do you know that just a month and a half ago, he slaughtered Evergreen Mills?"

"Again?" the Wanderer demanded in disbelief, shaking his head. "How much is the price on his head?"

"The price is more than I can afford," Ashur said, "But I'll be happy to reward anyone who can take him down. He has caused me too much trouble. And the Brotherhood…"

"Have you considered an alliance with them?" the Wanderer asked, "I wouldn't, but seeing as you're both trying to build now…"

Ashur stared, "No." he said coldly, "I have seen how they operate. I will not open up any sort of diplomatic relations while Elder Owyn Lyons is in charge."

"I hope you are not putting a grudge above the long-term good of your city?"

The King leaned forward, "I appreciate your visits, and I enjoy your company. You saved my child and my city, and allowed it grow under my leadership. But I must warn you not to raise this issue again."

The Wanderer nodded, "Very well."

"Thank you. How long are you staying for?"

"A few days." The Wanderer shrugged, "I need to use the ammo press."

"Of course," Ashur said smoothly. "And if you should desire anything else…" he glanced at Sarah, "companionship, for instance, we can provide."

"I think I'll pass," The Wanderer said, "but thank you all the same."

Then he was gone again, leaving Sarah with nothing but that all important thing which he supplied to every person in the capital wasteland, and something which had been lost to her over these last days: Hope.


	14. Chapter 14

Modus Operandi 14

The slave named Midea sat at her desk in her cramped room, sipping a cup of hot water. Tea and coffee were not available in the God-King's city, but she made the best of what she had.

On the desk in front of here was a list of names. Ashur had allowed her to take on her role as de facto head of the slaves. Everything including health issues, food, and steelyard duty all fell to her. The God-King said it was for their own good, that a proper command structure would give them back a sense of control and assure them that their lives would not always be this way, but Midea knew better. She saw it for what it was: a feeble attempt to keep the slaves docile.

Behind her, the door opened, ushering in a blast of hot, dry air.

It closed again.

"Hello Midea," said a familiar voice.

"Get. Out." She snarled, refusing to even turn around.

"I know you're angry-" the voice began.

"Get out."

"I need your help."

Midea's mouth open and shut wildly, "The _nerve _to come and ask me-"

"How would you like to put Werhner's plan into action?"

She shut her mouth and stared fixedly at the wall in front of her, "Why should I trust you a second time?"

"I am the Lone Wanderer," the voice explained, "My loyalties are not to Ashur, but to the Capital wasteland. I take care of it, but I cannot afford to take care of the rest of the world as well. I am sorry that I left you in this place…in this position. I am sorry that I betrayed you and everyone else who was relying on me…"

"Then why did you do it?" she demanded angrily, still facing the wall.

"I refused to take a child from her father. My mother died giving birth to me, so I know what it feels like to grow up missing a parent. And just days before I met Werhner, I'd lost my own father as well. I just couldn't do it to someone else, no matter the cost."

"So what's changed?" she asked.

"I'm trying to fix the Wasteland. Ashur's plans are getting in the way. He is an obstacle which must be removed, regardless of my own personal feelings."

"And he wasn't a threat before because…?"

"He was." The Wanderer sighed. "I was just too distraught to see it. I did not have the same perspective. But the way is clear now. Will you help me?"

"Will you kill Ashur?"

"Yes."

"Will you save his child?"

There was a pause, "If I can. If I cannot, then you and the slaves are more than welcome to come back to the capital wasteland with me."

"Our place is here."

"Why? You can start fresh in a world free of radiation, with people who aren't dying of it. You can drink fresh water with every meal, and sleep in a proper bed, instead of on the ground. Or you can stay here and rot with the Slavers and trogs. Either way it's not my problem. But if you want what's best for you, help me."

"But I've been here so long…" she said.

"Is this all you want your remaining years to be?"

She thought for a long time, "What do you need me to do?"

"Get Sarah Lyons to Werhner's hideout. She can handle herself. I will meet her there, and we can speak to each other further and plan this out properly."

Midea made her decision, "I'll do it."

If he had said anything at all, 'thankyou' or 'you're making the right choice' or 'this is for the best', she would have dropped it all entirely and sent him on his way but he didn't. She merely felt another blast of hot, dry air as the door opened…and closed

* * *

Sarah stared down at the child. It was lying in its crib, dozing peacefully amidst a dozen teddy bears, unperturbed by the beeping of the electronics which surrounded it.

"She's called Marie," the brunette woman said, "She's my daughter."

"She's beautiful," said Sarah, patting the young child gently.

"She's hope," the woman said. Her name was Sandra Kundanika and as far as Sarah could figure, she was Ashur's mistress. She was also a scientist, though Sarah had yet to figure out what she was studying.

"Hope?"

"For the future," the woman said, making herself busy at a console.

"Of the Pitt?"

Sandra laughed, "I know what you're thinking: how could one exist? But it does. Marie is rad-resistant. Unlike everyone else around her, large doses of radiation don't change her, or kill her. She's completely immune to the TDC."

She glanced at Sarah's questioning look and said, "Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion. You've seen the trogs?"

"Is that some kind of Supermutant?" Sarah asked.

The woman gave her an odd look, "You aren't the first to draw the parallel. No, Trogs are not like Supermutants, thank god, though they could be just as deadly. We devolve. A collection of factors including the radiation and a contagion which runs rampant here, about half the population devolves into feral beasts who slaughter without mercy."

"Sounds horrible…" Sarah commented.

"It is," the woman finished whatever it was she was doing on the computer, and turned around, planting her hands on the desk behind her, and leaning against it to talk. "Did you know that three years back, the slaves had a plan on let the trogs into the city? Thankfully my husband and a slaver managed to stop them."

"I heard he betrayed the slaves…"

"He did," the woman nodded, "They'd told him he had to steal a cure. What they didn't say was that my little darling _is_ the cure. As soon as he found out he would have to break up our family, he told both myself, and my husband, and taught the slaves a lesson."

_There's the missing link…_Sarah thought. The Lone Wanderer's tragic story was common knowledge in the wastes, and the stuff of legend. He lost his mother in child-birth, and his father to the Enclave.

Sarah remembered the expression on the man's face when he'd first walked into the citadel three years ago and less than twenty minutes after his father had died, most of that time had been spent fighting to get away from the purifier and the Enclave forces holding it. His hair was short, face clean-shaven, and his clothes consisted of a baseball cap and an armored vault suit. His weapons consisted of a hunting rifle and a single assault rifle.

The Wanderer had stayed in the citadel for three days, spoke to no one, just sat on a chair and stared at the wall. Then he'd walked out and vanished.

…And returned, six months later reborn as the silent, scarred, stoic symbol of hope, bearing the red bandana, blonde hair done up in the blast back style, and the brown duster.

Something happened to him in the intervening months, something extreme. Some of it, at least, must have happened here…

Sarah wondered what it was that had turned him from that teary-eyed child into the steel-eyed killing machine. More importantly, she wondered when he was going to get around to breaking her out.

* * *

She didn't have to wonder for long; when Sarah arrived back in the small, defunct washroom which served as her quarters in the Haven, she found a switchblade in the sink with a note attached to it in neat female handwriting saying: _For when you need it._

She picked up the knife and waved it around a little, trying to work out the kinks. The seven, was it seven days now? That she had been in captivity made her rusty, but not so much so that she didn't remember how to use it. She had once taught Squire Maxson how to kill a man by stabbing him in the kidneys. The child had been very impressed by that.

Sarah found a second note left on her bed:

_Escape. Come to me. Our mutual "friend" has a plan._

_-Midea_

She immediately tore up the note. She soaked it in irradiated water until the ink had run out, then she stuffed the remainder in her mouth and ate it. It was marginally better than the food the Raiders served her.

She had been extremely docile over the last week. It wasn't that Sarah hadn't wanted to escape, but she had been stuck for all that time with no weapons, and under close guard. Unlike the Supermutants, whose power vanished the moment someone refused to give in to fear, the raiders knew how to keep someone prisoner: close supervision, tight restrictions, and keep armed guards watching her from a short distance away. Plus, up until yesterday, the Wanderer was dead, and that left her without any allies willing to stick their necks out for her. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to her escape was distance itself. The wasteland was now a three day cart ride away, if she were able to make it that far, fighting through the raider's city. Even if she reached the other end of the tunnel, either on foot or by cart, she would still have to make it down through the hostile northern mountains of the capital wasteland, all the way back to the citadel. It was a daunting task, far too problematic for her to handle unprepared, and the raiders were good at making sure she was unprepared.

The footsteps of her escort echoed down the hall. They were coming for her. She felt the edge of the razor sharp switchblade… _Unprepared until now. _She sheathed the blade and put it down the front of her shirt, figuring that if any raider decided to search her _that_ thoroughly, she'd need it anyway.

* * *

Gallows sat behind a rock near the entrance to the tunnel. His sniper rifle was out and scanning the treeline continuously. He was waiting for the orange flash. It was out there, he knew it. Watching…waiting…and he was not going to let it go.

"Still out here?" a voice asked. Paladin Kodiak sat down beside him, removed his helmet and pulled out a candy bar.

"Shh…" Gallows hissed, staring at a rock some distance away. If he squinted at the right angle, it looked like a Supermutant. He tried to remember if it had been there the previous night.

"Man, Dusk was right; you _are_ obsessed." Kodiak said, taking a bite out of his candy bar.

"I'm a brotherhood soldier. We must kill Supermutants. That thing is a Supermutant, therefore I must kill it." Gallows said mechanically.

"Well yeah, but it's just one Supermutant."

"No, this one's different. It can think, plan, and talk. It's a smart Supermutant, and I cannot continue to allow it to exist. What if it takes command?"

"You're just a little paranoid," Kodiak said, patting him on the shoulder, "…Irving."

Gallows didn't answer.

"There it is!" Kodiak shouted suddenly, pointing to Gallows' side.

The Black Ops specialist twisted instantly and searched the trees for his prey. Then he heard Kodiak's laughter and realized what had happened.

"Go away." He told the paladin.

"Roger roger." Kodiak replied, grinning, "You keep watching those trees. Make sure they don't sneak up on us. Turns out Colvin brought a radio along. I'm going to go listen to Three-Dog."

He left Gallows in peace. The spec. ops. Soldier resumed his watch. He tried to find the supermutant-shaped rock, but couldn't. It was gone.


	15. Chapter 15

Modus Operandi 15

The door opened and a woman with bright purple hair walked through. She gave Sarah a cursory glance, "My name's Vikia. Get up, blondie."

Sarah rose obediently, hating the raider already. The woman was carrying another modified assault rifle., and used it to direct Sarah out the door, "You got an appointment with Phantom, scab. Gotta keep ya healthy."

She led Sarah down the hall and out the door, speaking to her in disdainful tones the entire time. "You're special. I dunno why, but the boss wants you in good condition. Maybe it's the way you suck'im off. Can't imagine why anyone would give a shit about some wastelander bitch. Keep moving!" she prodded Sarah in the back with the tip of her silenced assault rifle. They exited the building and headed across the plaza for Uptown. "You dumbass scabs have it too easy," The woman said, while Sarah desperately kept a hold of her temper, "you got food, drink, and rest every day. Who do you think gets that food and drink, huh? We're the ones getting our asses shot off."

They made their way through the wide mouth of the street, and Sarah tuned the raider out, carefully trying to catalogue her surroundings. The switchblade felt cold against her skin, but she didn't mind. They were not climbing any ramps, but instead staying at street level.

"I'm amazed you haven't tried to escape yet." The woman named Vikia said, "What, you given up already? You don't look half as bad as most've the scabs here do so what's the problem? I'd love for you gimme an excuse…"

Sarah kept a close eye on the locations of all the raiders in the area, and which way they were facing. An opportunity was presenting itself, she knew it. They turned left down an alleyway, and Sarah spotted a door hanging open. If she were to deal with the bitch and escape, she'd need to do two things: Separate the raider from allies to prevent an all-out firefight, which she would undoubtedly lose, and engage the raider in close quarters where her gun was useless.

She waited until Vikia's eyes were focused elsewhere, then made a made dash for the door. She ran a little ways down the front hall of the abandoned apartments and waited, her switchblade concealed in her sleeve.

Vikia burst through the door, walked up to her, and grabbed Sarah's arm. "If Ashur didn't want you healthy, I would've gutted you a long time ago, scab."

Sarah ripped her arm free and looked Vikia up and down.

"What?" the raider woman asked, "see something you like?"

"Well yes, actually…" Sarah responded, stepping forward, grabbing the tip of the silenced assault rifle and twisting it away. At the same time, she stabbed the woman in the solar plexus with her switchblade. Vikia gasped and grabbed Sarah's shoulder, wincing. The sentinel guided the raider to the floor, taking care to keep herself as free of blood as possible.

"…You left yourself completely open." The Sentinel finished.

The Raider's diaphragm began to spasm, her eyes widened with shock, staring at the ceiling above Sarah's head. The Sentinel crouched beside the raider and waited for her to die.

"I'm not some weak, tired, irradiated slave, dragged here after being denied food and water for three days!" Sarah said, leaning down to the slaver's ear and speaking quietly.

Vikia's eyes bulged.

"I'm not a scab, either. I am a trained brotherhood soldier," Sarah told the raider coldly, removing Vikia's modified assault rifle, "now I'm armed as well. And back in the capital wasteland I've gone through dozens of you without getting so much as a scratch. Raiders are the insects we stomp on while fighting worthy enemies. I hadn't given up. Ever. I was just biding my time."

With a shudder, the raider woman drew her last breath. Sarah pulled out the blade and wiped it on her own, dirty rags. Then she dragged the slaver's body into an old-world washroom and stripped her, wiping the fresh blood from her armour and laying it down beside the body until the raider was nude.

Sarah stripped down to her own drawers and put on the raider's uniform.

The armour managed to be terrifying and war-like while at the same time completely useless. It appeared to have been designed as much for its sex appeal as it was for protection. Her midriff was completely exposed, as was her neck and upper chest. It felt unwieldy and uncomfortable. IT included lots of tight black leather.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror and idly wondered if the Wanderer found this sort of thing attractive.

Anyway, it fit her well enough to be a disguise.

She took a moment to examine the modified assault rifle. It was black as midnight, with a silencer and a scope on top; the weapon of a stealthy fighter. It fit comfortably in her hands, and as she held it, she gained an insight into the Wanderer's style and methods. She suddenly understood why he wore no armour: with this weapon and a stealth-boy, no armour was necessary. The darkness was his armour. The shadows and his enemies own ignorance were his protection, and for him at least, it was all the protection needed. He could see without being seen, strike without any fear of recourse because by the time they were even aware he existed, his enemies were already dead. That was how he'd managed to take down evergreen mills, and the enclave. All the supermutant camps…

Unlike the Brotherhood, he did not participate in open combat. When fighting on his terms, which were the only terms anyone _could _fight him on, the battle was over long before it had ever started. His enemies were dead before the first shot was fired… it was only a matter of execution.

He had distilled the essence of stealth into so fine a method that he had transformed it from fighting into art, into a cold, calculating game of patience and planning. More like chess than boxing. All a fighter using the Wanderer's method had to do was account for the variables, and he would be invincible.

No wonder the supermutants, long the scourge of the capital wasteland fell to him so easily. Their thoughtless banzai charges would be the easiest type of attack to plan for. The supermutants met the brotherhood with strength in frontal assaults. The brotherhood, relying on strength and superior weaponry, was fighting them on their own ground, in their home turf, using their methods. _And we've suffered for it_, Sarah thought.

What was it the Wanderer had said to her? 'You travel slow, you fight heavy, and you aren't good at improvising. You just don't match my style…'

Sarah thought; _I'll change. When I get back, things'll be different. _She also began to understand why it was that the Wanderer worked alone.

Sarah heard a growl echo through the halls. She glanced down at the fresh blood, and then crouched behind the body, modified assault rifle at the ready, keeping a lid on her fear. A beast rounded the corner, attracted by the smell. Sarah's face twisted in horror. It was the first time she had ever seen a Trog.

It was naked, devoid of hair, possessed of long, gangly arms and legs. Its skin was raw and wrinkled. Its belly was a disgusting paunch. When it gnashed its teeth, Sarah noted that they were pointed, and bloody. It's thin, malnourished form belied its strength, which she had no doubt was substantial.

"Kill!" it hissed, leaping forward in the manner of an amphibian. Sarah opened up with the assault rifle, feeling it kick back against her unarmoured shoulder. The trog's death was a strangely silent one. The bullets tore into its skull, ripping the top off. It stumbled forward, carried by momentum, and landed beside the body of the dead raider. Surprised by the ease of the kill, Sarah stood and resumed her study in the mirror. Something was missing. She was too clean! Every raider in the pit had dirt and grime worked in at every level. If she stepped back into the street right now, she'd be spotted and plucked off right away.

Sarah sighed and stepped out of the room, slipping her switchblade under a leather strap and hefting the rifle. It was comparatively light, and easy to wield. She moved through the apartment, rifle up, ready in case there were more trogs around. She looked through the shelves and supplies for something sticky or grimy she could use to complete the disguise. The building was in bad shape. Dirt and muck were caked nearly everywhere, but it was all too dry.

In a kitchen, she found a pot of pre-war honey. She sniffed it and poked a finger inside. It smelled sweet, and tasted sweeter. But it was also sticky, and would do the job. Sarah quickly began to wash her hands in the thick goo, spreading it up her arms and around her neck and face. She covered her midriff and put it in her hair, trying to make it look as if she hadn't washed in years.

Then he picked up large handfuls of the dust and dirt which covered the floors and rubbed it on top, creating a mixed layer of grime so complete that she actually surprised herself the next time she glanced in a mirror. Her hair was disheveled, unkempt, and darkened by the dirt. Bits stood out at odd angles, and she knew it would be hell trying to return it to its normal state. Her face, arms, and chest were absolutely caked in deep grime, replicating the look of the raider she had killed not twenty minutes before.

It would have to be good enough. She gathered her weapons and stepped back out into the Raider city, trying to act natural, and determined to find Midea.

* * *

**Okay, a few comments here:**

**One: The description of the Wanderer's fighting style was something I got from playing through Metro 2033 on stealth mode. It's harder to do on Fallout 3, but if you can, the results are spectacular. My proudest moment in all the time I played that game happened at nighttime. I had the perforator, and was wandering through the northern forests near oasis. A random encounter happened and I saw a group of four raiders. I spent two minutes positioning myself behind a clump of trees less than ten meters away from them, then I fired about seven shots in two round bursts and dropped all of them at once within probably two seconds. It was the cleanest fight ever, and sooooo satisfying.**

**And two: the idea for the honey actually came from my own experiences as a child. While climbing I'd get tree sap all over my arms. It was sticky and uncomfortable, so I'd rub fine dirt on top to create a layer between it and the rest of the world. It worked and allowed me to continue playing in comfort, but I'd come home looking grimy as all living hell. I was watching Life After People, and it turns out Honey would outlast almost every other aspect of our society. Weird, huh? So I substituted honey for sap. **


	16. Chapter 16

Modus Operandi 16

Midea was in the process of taking a walk around her quarters when the door burst open. She dropped the clipboard and reflexively went to her knees, putting her hands on her head. It was the standard pose when raiders were in a shooting mood, or things were getting excited. It showed that one was calm, unarmed, and no threat. Those who didn't do it got shot, more often than not.

The raider shut the door behind her and leaned against it. She let out a breath. Her face was dirty, and her hair was tangled. She was also armed with an infiltrator. That was an important detail from Midea's perspective.

"Forgive me for asking, but what do you need?" Midea asked, keeping her tone docile, and her eyes downwards.

The raider let out a long relieved breath. Then she looked down at Midea. "What?"

"I was merely wondering what you required me for…" Midea asked, once again keeping her utmost calm.

"Are you Midea?" the Raider asked.

"Yes," something wasn't right.

"Well get up," The Raider ordered, "I'm Sarah Lyons. Thanks for the switchblade."

Midea breathed a sigh of relief at least equal to that of her visitor. "Is that a disguise?"

The woman gave her a Look.

Midea thought it through and chuckled. "Well it's a _really good_ disguise." She sighed and sat down on her bed. The woman leaned against an old filing cabinet and waited.

Midea tented her hands in deep thought. "We need to get you into the steelyard. From there we can meet out mutual friend in Werhner's old hide-out. After that…we'll make another plan."

"Where's the steelyard?" the woman named Sarah Lyons asked. "I can just walk over there-"

"Only slaves go in the steelyard these days." Midea sighed, "I'm going to have to get you a slave uniform."

The door opened again, this time a man stepped through, wearing a set of armour with far too many spikes in it. His face was clean by Pitt standards, and his blonde hair was shaved into a Mohawk. "Evenin' ladies." He said in an oily voice.

Midea forgot herself for a moment, "What do you want, Jackson?"

"Just wonderin' what two fine-lookin' wimmin are up to at this hour…and by the way, Scab, you speak to me like that again, I'll stake you out for da trogs." He turned the Sarah, "You look new here. Can I show ya around?"

"No." Said Sarah.

His eyes narrowed, "Y'know 'bout a slave what escaped from Haven about an hour ago…"

"Do I look like a fucking slave?" the woman demanded angrily.

"You look like a newbie." The raider observed.

Midea cut in, "She came to ask me if I'd seen the escapee."

"I bet." The raider named Jackson thought about this. It seemed like a reasonable explanation. He sniffed the air and turned to Sarah, "You smell sweet."

She smiled at him, "Mmm-hmm, and taste sweeter…" her rifle pressed against his stomach, "…but I'm busy right now. I'll catch up with you later."

"Yes Ma'am!" He saluted, grinning, and stepped out.

Sarah turned to Midea, "What's the next step?"

"Hang on and I'll get you a uniform." Midea said, rooting through her drawers.

* * *

The Lone Wanderer sat down in front of Ashur.

"Hello my friend," The Raider King said happily, "Did you get what you needed from the ammo press?"

"I did."

Ashur laughed, "From the amount of ammo, one might think you're building an army."

"Yes," said the Wanderer.

Ahsur nodded. They sat in silence for a few moments, then the raider coughed, "was there something else you required?"

The Wanderer stared him down, "Who is the most wanted person in the capital wasteland?"

"The Lone Wanderer," Ashur told him, "why?"

"Give me his description." The Wanderer prompted.

"Blonde hair, red bandana, he wears a duster."

Very slowly, and very carefully, the Wanderer pulled a burnt and blackened red bandana from his pocket and laid it, with some reverence, on the table. Ashur stared, startled. Then he smiled. "I don't have enough money to pay you for this… but I can assure you that _anything _you desire from life, we will provide. You know, at first I thought you _were _the Lone Wanderer, but then you stood by me and against the slaves."

"Me as the Lone Wanderer…imagine that," the Wanderer said, removing his headwrap and sunglasses. He folded the bandana into a long strip and tied it on.

Ashur stayed silent for a very long time, studying the Wanderer's face. When he did speak, it was with all the quiet menace of a knife in the nighttime. "You come into my home…" he hissed, "you eat my food, you drink my wine, you rock my child to sleep…you partake in all the pleasures and privileges of the life I lead…_and only then do you tell me that you are the hated enemy battling against everything I stand for_?"

"I consider us to be on the same side, actually. I stand for the same things you do, Ashur." The Wanderer replied, "You stand for rebuilding, for what _could be_ instead of what _is_. You conduct yourself and your affairs with as much honor as your situation can afford, and that is why Wernher is rotting in the steelyard with a bullet in his brain."

"And Sarah Lyons, you brought her here?"

"I did."

"And you helped her escape?"

"I did. She is long gone, so you might as well stop searching."

"What's to stop me from calling my guards?" Ashur demanded.

"They're all dead, for one thing," The Wanderer replied matter-of-factly. He held up his hands, which had been sitting below desk level for some time. Contained in each one was a frag grenade. Both were missing pins, "But that was a precaution, as are these grenades. The simple fact is that I'd just like to sit and talk. If it all goes well, we'll leave on friendly terms and perhaps even be allies in any future endeavors."

"Not likely." Ashur responded, his voice full of bile, "But I'm listening."

"As you are rebuilding the Pitt, I'm rebuilding the Capital Wasteland."

"Your efforts are impeding mine," Ashur interrupted.

"And vise-versa." The Wanderer countered. "In fact your raiders are threatening to tear down everything my father and I have done so far. But I don't want a war. Therefore I'm laying down some terms which, if followed, will allow us to co-exist peacefully."

"You are not going to tell me how to rule this city." Ashur snarled.

"No, I'm not. I'm merely putting a constraint on your growth." The Wanderer replied. "Your raiders do not enter the capital wasteland unless they have my permission. When they are there, they come, they trade peacefully, and they leave. No looting and no slaves. No more interfering in wasteland growth. In return I can provide you with discounts on supplies such as Aqua Pura, which the Pitt desperately needs."

"Most raiders are here for the violence. The fact that they're allowed to loot and steal is a bonus for them. How am I supposed to keep them in line?" the King asked.

"I'm not going to tell you how to run your kingdom, Ashur. You're a competent man. One of the few. Get it done, or I'll bring your city to it's knees."

Ashur leaned forward angrily, "If you threaten me again, I promise that neither you, nor your bitch will make it out of here alive."

The Wanderer leaned forward, "If Sarah Lyons dies, or I find Pitt raiders causing trouble in the capital wasteland again, I will come back here, and I will end you. I will kill you, your wife, and your child. I will burn your city street by street until there is nothing left. Every trace of your existence will be wiped from every file and noone will even remember that you ever tried. I took down Raven rock. I took down the Landcrawler. I took down Evergreen Mills, twice. I have traveled to point lookout and back, marched into the Supermutant's den, and nothing has stood against me. Destroying this city would be child's play. You know the legends. Ignore them at your peril."

Ashur stared at him like a deer in headlights. The Wanderer rose to his feet. "You have three days to think about your response. When you've decided, send Lulu out to the steelyard with your response in writing. I'll be waiting for her there."


	17. Chapter 17

Modus Operandi 17

A quiet wind blew through Gallows' filters as he sat behind the rock, watching the trees. He had been performing his moonlit vigil for two days now, and at least once every night, he caught a glimpse of the spuermutant.

Tonight something was different; he'd caught three glimpses. He was waiting on a fourth. As he scanned the woods, he spotted an orange flash positioned between two trees. This time it stayed put, perhaps assuming it's cover was secure. Gallows was careful to stay as silent as possible, trying to keep the rest of the pride out of it until he'd taken the shot. He lined the crosshairs up on the mutant's back, breathed slowly in, then out. He breathed in halfway and pulled the trigger. His shot echoed through the forest, and he heard, in the distance, the loud, satisfying scream of a supermutant in pain.

The Pride rushed out the door in full battle gear to see what the commotion was about. The spec-ops soldier turned to wave them back, and that's when he saw the supermutant crouched on top of the rail tunnel, watching them all. Before he could even shout a warning, it had leapt down among the soldiers. There was no roar, no warning cry, it just dropped into the center of the group, and began hitting them. Before any one of them could do anything more than yell a warning, it had picked up Kodiak, disarmed him, and was holding him out, pressing his own laser rifle against his skull.

It circled, not allowing any of them to get behind it, using both Kodiak and the terrain as a shield. Gallows reflected quietly that if all the mutants were this smart, the Brotherhood would be having a much harder time of it. They _relied _on the Supermutants being loud, stupid, and prone to attack head-on. All of their strategies depended upon it.

"I can wholeheartedly assure you that my intentions are strictly honorable." The mutant said, keeping Kodiak between itself and their weapons.

At this announcement, the entirety of the Lyons'Pride paused in the act of pulling their triggers.

"…What?" Gallows asked, and though they could not see his face, the pride could tell that he was slightly slack-jawed. The fact was made plainly obvious by the tip of his rifle, which had meandered away and was now pointed at a tree some distance from his original target: the mutant's face.

"Then why are you holding a laser rifle to Kodiak's head?" Glade asked, not in any kind of a sarcastic tone, but one of curiosity and, he hoped, calming. It had not shot at them yet, which was strange.

"It can _talk_?" Dusk asked incredulously.

Colvin turned to her and, never missing an opportunity, said "You are so far behind the rest of us you're coughing in our dust cloud. Smell the embarrassment."

Dusk responded with a reasonable, unassailably airtight counter. She said: "Shut the fuck up or I'll blow _your_ head off, Colvin."

"Can we _please_ keep this conversation civilized?" the Supermutant interrupted.

"I'm down for that." Kodiak said in muffled tones, the barrel of his laser rifle pressed tightly against his skull, and his boots hanging a full two feet off the ground. The supermutant turned to Glade. "I have no desire to harm this man. I merely wish to negotiate terms of peace. If I had not done this, you would have shot me without a second thought, just as Gallows did to my decoy. Though dreadful, the action was necessary for my own self-preservation. I will release your comrade as soon as you have all lowered your weapons."

Glade watched him for a few moments, then turned to the pride and said. "Put them down, guys."

Colvin obeyed, grinning like a maniac. Gallows and Dusk also obeyed, but a lot more hesitantly. Glade himself grabbed Dusk's sniper rifle and pointed it at the mutant, explaining as he did so. "Aside from me, we have all lowered our weapons. I gave the order, and have no intention of shooting you unless I have to, but-"

"I see." The mutant nodded, thinking ahead. "I am armed and still threatening one of your comrades."

"Glad you guys haven't forgotten about me." Kodiak mumbled. The Supermutant gently lowered him to the ground, and relinquished the weapon.

In response, Glade lowered his sniper rifle.

There was an awkward silence.

"Well now what?" Colvin asked.

"A dear friend of mine is stranded on the far side of that tunnel." The mutant told them. "As is one of yours. I am watching to see that he returns safely. Just as you are no doubt watching for her."

"Jesus…" said Dusk, staring at the Supermutant. "Gallows was right. The Wanderer has a Mutie ally…"

"Why would you care about a human?" Glade asked.

"The Lone Wanderer is the only human who did not attempt to shoot me on sight. We have shared many pleasant conversations. I merely wish to await his return in peace."

The Pride turned this over in their minds.

"We have a lot of questions to ask." Glade told him.

"I will answer to the best of my ability." The mutant promised. "But do not shoot me."

"I can't believe we're even considering this!" Dusk snapped. "It's a supermutant! We kill supermutants. Why haven't we killed it yet?"

It frowned, "Why do you soldiers always insist on seeing the world through a filter of child-like simplicity?"

Colvin grinned, "I like him already."

"For Intel's sake alone, we should keep him alive." Glade said thoughtfully. "The question is whether or not we should take him back to the citadel."

* * *

Midea lead Sarah through the sweltering heat of the mill. As they walked by the rows of slaves, all shoveling coal into the fires, or pushing carts full of steel ingots around, Sarah was the object of many a glare, and sometimes a few nasty things muttered behind her back. It became clear just how much the slaves hated their position, and the people keeping them there.

They passed by a giant pit, covered in a chainlink fence. It descended into darkness.

"There's only one way to gain your freedom in the Pitt." Midea said, "Slaves fight down in that hole and whoever wins gets to be a raider instead. They dump irradiated barrels in there during the fight so that if your opponents don't kill you, the radiation will."

"That's horrible." Sarah said.

"No it's not." Midea corrected, "The horrible part is that the audience sometimes shoots at you even after you've won and survived the radiation."

"Who was the last person to make it out?"

"Our mutual friend." The woman said. "I don't know how he did it. It's near impossible to survive."

"Yeah…" Sarah muttered thoughtfully, "He's good at that kind of thing."

The slave led her up a short staircase and around a few twists and turns until they came to a small room. Written beside the door on the opposite side in what Sarah could only assume was blood, were the words 'steelyard'.

"You two goin' somewhere?" a raider voice asked. Sarah glanced around the room. There as a desk with some shelves behind it, and a raider sitting down tinkering with some unknowable object. He hadn't looked up yet.

"I'm just taking her to the steelyard, Everett." Midea said.

The man looked up and ran an eye over Sarah. She gazed back at him steadily, tightening her grip on the modified assault rifle. Midea shook her head slowly.

Everett noticed both movements and straightened up. "You know…" he said, "I bin listenin' to the radio. The entire city is lookin' for an escaped slave…"

"Why would an escaped slave go to the steelyard?" Midea asked. "We all know it's a death sentence."

"Right," Everett licked his lips nervously, his eyes fixed on the assault rifle, well aware that if he said the wrong thing, his life would meet an untimely end, "Right, of course. You just go on your way then."

"We will, thankyou." Sarah said sweetly.

They stepped through the door and into a maze of chain link corridors. Sarah spotted two or three trogs lurking in the corners of the room.

They reached the other end of the maze and encountered another Raider. It was Phantom, leaning against the wall between Sarah and the last door. A cigarette was hanging from his lips, and in his arm was a rolled up poster.

Sarah and Midea both slowed, watching him carefully. He was alone, and unconcerned. Sarah raised the modified assault rifle. He looked up at her and nodded. "Hey Miss Lyons. That's a nice look. I'm Phantom. I'm the medic-"

"You took care of me," Sarah said, "I remember."

"I didn't treat ya bad."

"No. You were very civilized."

Phantom nodded. "Yeah…"

The poster he was carrying landed at Sarah's feet. She kept the assault rifle trained on him while Midea picked it up. She unrolled it to reveal a picture of the Lone Wanderer, more detailed than most. A reward for twenty thousand caps was being offered for his head.

"I ent stupid, I only look it." Phantom told them, "Saw that the other day. Then a man walked by, an' I thought they looked similar…S'im, innit? The Boss's friend. He brought ya here. He bin walking 'round the Pitt for more'n three years now. And none of us saw it…" he shook his head and laughed darkly, "Sunnuva bitch…guy's got balls'o steel."

"What do you want, Phantom?" Midea asked.

Phantom kept his eyes trained on Sarah. "I was one'o the ones who saw Evergreen Mills after he visited the place. I helped clean it up. No one was left alive. Not even the dogs."

"What do you want from us?" Sarah asked.

"Again, I ent stupid. If he's here an' he brought you, then something big is goin' down. Ashur's good, but if the Wanderer could take down the Enclave, he could damn well take down the Pitt too. You guys've got something planned an' I don't wanna die in this shithole."

"You're asking for _asylum_?" Midea asked incredulously. "From _one man_?"

"From the Lone Wanderer." Phantom qualifed, "there's a difference. Besides, I'm a raider, but I'm also a damned good medic. An' damned good medics are hard to come by." He looked to Sarah, "Even in the capital wasteland I bet."

Sarah nodded. The citadel's resident medic was a robot named Sawbones who occasionally butchered his patients instead of fixing them. As far as Sarah knew, she'd been next to dead when she'd been brought to Phantom, and he'd had her up and moving in three days time. Skills of that caliber were not something to be scoffed at.

"Alright." She said. "But you walk ahead of us at least five paces. The Wanderer's in there somewhere and he just might shoot you on sight. If he does, it's not my problem." She cocked the assault rifle, "it's that or I can blow you away here and now."

"Very fair, very fair." Phantom said, raising his hands in a placative gesture.

"Move!" Sarah ordered.

An old pre-war saying described the city as an urban jungle, and Sarah could never had thought of a more accurate description of the steelyard. Pipes, lofts, and catwalks stretched as high as the eye could see. The ground was littered with railcars and derelict pieces of machinery. The sky, as always was hidden by angry red clouds. She caught sight, far above them, of trogs crawling along giant pipes which connected the structures together.

"Midea, which way?"

"Up there," The slave directed, pointing to a blue light on the roof of a distant building.

"Yeh'd betta move." Phantom told them. "Dem trogs'll getcha if ya stay still."

They began to make their way across the concrete loading area, passing a jackknifed truck with a sofa on top. Spotlights were pointed into all the dark nooks and crannies, giving the entire area the disquieting feel of an abandoned pre-war parking lot at three in the morning.

As they passed up a flight of stairs and through a broken chain link fence, Sarah began to hear the gurgles and growls of the gathering throngs of trogs. Flat feet slapped the pavement all around them, yet not a single one could be seen. They appeared to exist solely in the corner of the eye as a flash of movement or colour. Midea drew close, and Phantom was visibly frightened. The trio began to climb the second flight of stairs beside a set of giant steam pipes when Midea suddenly pointed in fear out at the steelyard. Sarah turned to see a sea of green trogs surging out of the darkness at them.

"Climb!" she ordered. They rushed to the top of the stairs, onto a small landing. A second set of stairs lead up from there. Sarah crouched at the top, her assault rifle pointed down the only approach. The trogs rushed up by the dozens. Her assault rifle bucked wildly against her shoulder as she fired down into the crowd, being careful to aim for the heads. Not every shot made it, and she cursed every time she missed, well aware of the fact that she only had two clips. The trogs were easy to kill, but there were dozens of them, possibly a hundred, all surging forward. When one died, two leapt up to take it's place. There was a pile of bodies forming at the bottom of the staircase. Through the corner of her eye, she saw Midea and Phantom run up the second staircase, all quarrels forgotten in the face of the tide. When Midea tripped, the raider helped her to her feet and they both kept climbing. Sarah found herself stuck. She couldn't move, because her rifle fire was the only thing keeping all of them from being overrun, yet she was running out of ammo, and despite her efforts, the trog lines were inching ever closer, step by step. A sudden thud told her that a heavy object had landed on the roof beside her. A second stream of bullets, flying to the sound of a Chinese assault rifle, added to Sarah's own, and drove back the attacking trogs. A few assault rifle clips landed beside her.

"Reload and move!" the Wanderer ordered. The soldier in Sarah obeyed instantly. She crouched in a combat stance on the second landing and yelled at the Wanderer to move. He reloaded, running towards her. The trogs surged up over the top step onto the first landing. The Wanderer joined Sarah and tapped her on the shoulder, opening up with his Chinese assault rifle.

They worked in tandem, leapfrogging up the stairs, one moving and reloading while the other was firing, keeping up a constant stream of lead to hold back the hordes. There were no compliments, or admiring glances exchanged, simply a burning fervent desire to survive. Her shoulder had gone numb from the constant impact of the rifle butt, and the only sound she could hear was the gurgles and thuds of bullets hitting flesh. They moved their way up the structures, firing at all times until they reached the landing of the shelter Midea had pointed out. A voice shouted "Duck!"

Sarah grabbed the Wanderer and pulled them both backwards away from the stairwell. Phantom had taken up station behind an adjustable UV lamp. He pointed it at the top of the stairs just as the trog masses reached the top. They recoiled instantly and sank back down with cries of fury. Sarah felt herself being pulled backwards. She was hauled through a door, which slammed shut behind them.

"Fuck me sideways…" she heard Phantom muttering, letting her go. The Wanderer sank down to his knees, his rifle leaning against the wall beside him. Midea was standing in the corner with her arms crossed. All four of them were out of breath.

"We're safe," The Wanderer said, "for the moment. Now all we have to do is wait…"

* * *

**I know two in one day is extreme and whatnot, but i'm not putting anything up tomorrow, so I thought i'd get the next one up...**

**anyway i know the trogs don't work like zombies, but they're a little like the husks from Mass Effect in that they attack in small numbers and are painfully easy to deal with. As i play through the Pitt DLC, i'm always bothered by the fact that the slavers, with all of their guns and ammo, can't take out these trogs which the LW slaughters by the dozens. Wernher's plan would never work with the Trogs as they are in-game. so i juiced them up a little. sorry about that.**

**ANd also i felt it was time to get moving on the Lyons' Pride subplot...**


	18. Chapter 18

Modus Operandi 18

The pounding on the door outside lasted for what seemed like hours. Sarah sat on the raised catwalk, leaning against the wall with her rifle in her lap. It was the same pose she had taken countless times during the longer firefights in the DC ruins, when the brotherhood soldiers were stuck in a trench, or at the far side of a courtyard for entire days. The room was large. A raised catwalk had stairs leding down to a lower level, full of boxes of supplies and ammunition. A ram extended up the left side of the room to a smaller enclosure obscured from view by medical curtains.

The Wanderer had taken some pains, laying frag mines all around the door. She watched as he turned to confront her two companions: Midea the slave, and Phantom the raider.

He gave Midea a swift nod and said "You cannot go back to the Pitt yet. Not until we know Ashur's plans."

She nodded silently.

The Wanderer confronted Phantom. He spent a long moment looking the raider up and down. The raider was frightened, rightfully; the Lone Wanderer had killed altogether too many of his allies, but Phantom did his best to stand up straight.

The Wanderer nodded to himself, an internal argument appearing to reach a resolution. He turned to Sarah, "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

Sarah rose, feeling her aching joints protest, and followed him up the ramp to a room, obscured medical curtains. It turned out to be a mini bedroom, with a few pre-war books stacked on a side table, a desk, and a small cot.

He took a moment to examine her. Sarah suddenly remembered the slave disguise Midea had given her. It was only marginally worse than the loincloths the supermutants used. She felt her cheeks flush, and tried unsuccessfully to fight it down.

He had just enough class to pretend not to notice. "When the trogs stop banging on the door, I'll get you a better set of clothes."

"I'd appreciate that." Sarah felt sleep weighing down her eyelids. she yawned, fighting to keep them open.

The Wanderer nodded, "And the raider?"

Sarah shrugged, "He asked to come along."

"…and?" the Wanderer asked, "you just said yes? Until we know Ashur's intentions, I have to assume he's hostile." The Wanderer told her, "That being the case, so are the raiders under his command. Why did you bring one of them here?"

Sarah rubbed her forehead. She was feeling exhausted. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a good night's sleep; the time spent unconscious in haven's infirmary didn't count.

"I don't know…" she murmured. "What can he do here anyway? Open the door? We're all in this together, we just don't let him take any of the watches. Give him a chance to prove himself…"

The Wanderer gave her another close examination, and she fancied she could actually see him checking off various items on an internal list. He sniffed and frowned, "Do I smell…honey?"

"Look, I needed a disguise!" Sarah moaned, "Just let it alone! Every guy I've seen has pointed it out."

He flicked back the edge of his duster and unsheathed his combat knife, flipping it end for end and catching it by the blade. He handed it to her, hilt first. "Scrape it off. Then get some sleep. I'll wake you in four hours."

"Thank you." Sarah muttered, taking the knife. He disappeared, closing off the break in the ring of medical curtains, leaving Sarah totally enclosed in her own private room.

She stripped down to her drawers and set about scraping off the mixture of dirt and pre-war honey, one long stroke at a time. Not all of it was removed, but enough that she could move around comfortably again. The combat knife was extremely sharp, and she accidently cut herself more than once. The honey mixture was sticky, and she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms and legs being ripped off with it. her hair was nearly unsalvageable, and more than she felt like managing at that moment. The operation left her sore, but feeling clean. Then she climbed on top of the mattress and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

She awoke feeling oddly refreshed, despite her situation. A set of clean dry clothes was folded neatly on the floor beside her bed. It was female combat armour. As she slipped it on, she wondered vaguely where the Wanderer had gotten it from. A laser rifle had been placed at the bottom of her bed, as well as a laser pistol. She picked it up feeling the familiar weight of the weapon. It felt much more familiar than any assault rifle. a pile of ammunition was sitting beside it along with a harness for both the ammo, and the rifle.

Midea and Phantom were both sitting on plastic chairs, eating out of tin cans. The Wanderer was nowhere to be seen. The slaver had a sawed-off across her knees, and Sarah could tell immediately that she was ready to use it.

She joined them, picking up an open tin and a spork and sitting down beside Midea, "Where is he?"

"He walked out the door about an hour ago." the slave told her.

"He was supposed to wake me up when it was my turn to keep watch." Sarah pointed out.

"You've been asleep for a good eight hours." Midea said.

"So who's keeping a watch on Phantom?"

"Not that you need to…" the raider muttered.

"I am." Midea waved the sawed-off.

Sarah got to her feet and walked to the door.

"What are you doing?" Midea demanded.

"Taking a look outside." Sarah said, cranking it open. Hot rancid air billowed into the She raised her laser rifle and stepped to the side in case a trog was waiting on the other side. When nothing came barreling through, she took a quick look at the roof of the building the hideout was built on. Still nothing. She slipped out, shutting the door behind her. She stood on the roof, looking over the steelyard. Far below, she saw the door they had entered by. The path they had traveled to get up to the hideout was surprisingly short. It had felt much longer with the trog horde on their tails.

Keeping an ear cocked for the pitter patter of trog feet, she crouched down and watched the steelyard below, and the grid of railcars. A few trogs moved through it slowly, obviously unaware they were being observed.

"Sarah?" a voice whispered, making her jump.

The Wanderer crouched beside her, carrying a sniper rifle. He held a finger to his lips, requesting silence. They both resumed watching the steelyard below.

"There's some frag mines sitting on the stairway…" he breathed. "so if any trogs decide to visit, we'll get a heads up."

"Is that what you're doing out here?" she asked, keeping her voice the same low volume as his.

"And watching the door," He explained, "Whoever Ashur sends through that door tells us what our next move is. It'll either be Lulu, or a squad of raiders trying to kill us. If its Lulu, we can walk out of here and head for the capital wasteland to set up a trade agreement. If the raiders come, then you and I have a little errand to run first."

"The errand?"

"We'll switch the floodlights off. That'll give the trogs access to the city. They'll overrun it, and we'll simply walk out while the raiders are busy."

"Won't that spell the end for The Pitt?" Sarah asked. "I already stood by and watched it burn once. I'm not too keen on doing it again."

"You'll have to if you ever want to see your dad again. And if it really bothers you, I'll be the one pulling the proverbial trigger."

"Is it worth it?" she asked, "you're really willing to destroy this place again in order to make our job in the capital wasteland easier?"

"No." the Wanderer sighed, "I'll do it to make our job in the wasteland possible. There'll still be raiders there, but their back will be broken. They won't be nearly the same kind of threat they are right now. The Supermutants are the real problem, but the raiders are taking up the time I'd otherwise be spending dealing with it."

"Right…" Sarah sighed.

"Do you like your laser rifle?"

"Yes, actually thank you." She smiled at him, but he was keeping his eyes firmly on the door.

He did nod, "I figured it'd be more comfortable than an assault rifle."

Sarah gripped the laser rifle. the Wanderer was correct; it felt like a little taste of home. She was trapped in a nightmare, so deep over her head that she couldn't even see daylight, but at least she now had a weapon she knew how to use.

Movement from below caught her eye. A group of raiders, three dozen in total, were filing into the steelyard, armed to the teeth. The first six had flamers, and were putting them to use on the few trogs who had taken notice of their entrance. The next six all had miniguns. Three behind them were carrying sniper rifles. Sarah squinted at the strike team as it entered. Her eyes grew wide; six of the raiders had Fatman mini-nuke launchers. The rest were all armed with Chinese assault rifles.

"That's not a squad, that's an army!" she whispered, panicking. She'd never faced a force that heavily armed without the full might of the brotherhood standing behind her. "They're loaded for bear…"

"No." said the Wanderer, "They're loaded for _me_. They'll use the mini-nukes to try and flush us out first." He shook his head, "you know, Ashur didn't even consider my offer. He probably started planning this as soon as I left. I gave him three days to consider my terms. It hasn't been twelve hours yet."

Sure enough, the flamers were forming a protective circle around the main group. The Fatman carriers set their weapons down like mortars and began to fire mini-nukes into the buildings and blind spots.

The Wanderer and Sarah both headed back into the hide-out. He grabbed Phantom by the neck, tossed an armed frag mine onto a chair, and set him down on top saying, "I would stay seated if I were you." then he turned to Sarah and said "Take Midea and get higher. As high as you can. Watch out; there's wildmen up there and they're armed."

"Wildmen?"

"They are to the Pitt what the raiders are to the wasteland." The Wanderer explained.

"Wildmen above and raiders below…" Sarah muttered, pulling Midea along. "…this is insane."

"Really?" the Wanderer asked, pushing a clip into his silenced assault rifle, "For me it's business as usual."


	19. Chapter 19

Modus Operandi 19

Midea followed Sarah as both women ran out the door. The mininukes were falling on the stairway up, causing the metal to heat and melt, cutting off the way down. Sarah turned and immediately began looking for another staircase. Midea grabbed her arm and pointed to a long winding maze of walkways jutting out from their plateau.

"Sarah," The Lone Wanderer called out, walking towards the collapsed stairway. She turned back and he gave her a curt nod, "Good luck."

"You too." She and Midea turned and began to run along the rickety catwalk, ducking under the low pipes. Some of the raiders below spotted them, and began to poen up with sniper fire. Bullets ricocheted off the railing near her hand, but she kept running, well aware than if she stopped, the Fatman raiders would get a bead on them.

The entire catwalk shook and groaned as a mini-nuke got a square hit. She grabbed onto the railing and held on for dear life as the ancient metal creaked and bent under protest. Midea pushed her from behind and they both ran on. A short distance ahead was the safety of a giant tangled mass of pipes, which would shield them. The mini-nukes began to fall all around them like giant drops of rain. One of them passed over the railing, less than a foot in front of her nose and hit the far wall, punching a hole in the side of the building.

Sarah reached the shelter of the pipes and looked back. The section of catwalk which the mini-nuke had impacted was gone completely, and the rest was sagging dangerously. Midea reached her and they both took a moment to breath.

"I hope your friend knows what he's doing." The slave said.

"We have enough to worry about." Sarah replied.

* * *

The Wanderer watched Sarah disappear down the catwalk. He turned and stood at the edge of the stairwell, examining the damage. It had completely disappeared, and he could hear the clink of cooling metal. He let out a short relieved breath; they couldn't get up to Sarah. He crouched and checked his pip boy.

484 rads. More than enough… _thank you Moira_…He took a running leap and landed on the concrete ground far below, feeling both his legs break. He cursed wildly and waited a few seconds while they repaired themselves. The sensation of shattered bones reassembling was an extremely painful one, but necessary. It allowed him to perform far above the capabilities of anyone who wasn't wearing power armour. It was his secret weapon, his ace in the hole. After a moment, he got up and tested them out. They still ached like mad, but there were ways around that. He pulled out two Stimpacks and injected one into each leg, just to be sure, then he shouldered his silenced assault rifle and proceeded into the maze of alleyways and catwalks, trying to circle around the raiders' left side. Eventually, after following a gulley full of irradiated water, he passed through an alleyway piled full of barrels, and saw the raiders through a chain link fence. He raised his assault rifle and wiped out the six man mini-nuke mortar crew, taking care to shoot up the weapons too, rendering them useless; the less incoming fire Sarah had to deal with, the better. One of the raiders carrying a Chinese assault rifle spotted him and the entire party opened up, pouring hundreds of rounds into the chainlink fence. But the Wanderer had already moved on.

* * *

Sarah edged around the gas tank, gripping her laser rifle tightly. A .32 round slammed into the metal, making the entire thing ring like a bell. Sarah leveled her laser rifle at the enemy, a man dressed in rags, wielding a revolver, and fired. The line of red death lanced though the smoke filled air and burnt his arm into a blackened twisted mess. He screamed in pain, and she ended him with a shot to the face. A Wildman with a 10mm pistol opened up at her from a catwalk above, one of the bullets striking the shoulder plate of her armour. Sarah ducked back behind the gas tank.

"One above," she told Midea, handing the slave her laser pistol, "Go around the other side and fire a few a few shots to get his attention. The one on the catwalk is dead"

The slave took the pistol without saying a word and leaned out of cover, firing up at the indistinct shape. Sarah waited until she heard the Wildman returning fire, then leaned out and shot a white-hot lance of light through his chest. The man slumped and slid off his perch, landing on the ground five stories below with a splat. She took a moment to glance down. The raiders were spreading through the steelyard like small insects in a maze, turning corner after corner. Every time they reached an intersection, their little group would split up, forming a net which was closing on the small shape of the Lone Wanderer.

More gunfire brought the fight back to her level. "They have an assault rifle!" Midea said, "We're pinned!"

An ugly tearing noise made the tank ring. A huge spinning blade burst through the side, narrowly missing Sarah's head.

"Gonna kill you, meat!" a female voice screeched. A woman stepped around the corner, wielding an ugly yellow weapon. It's main body, held up by a long black handle, was a small gas-powered engine. A chain lead up from it to the tip of the weapon, which was a set of vicious, notched axe blades set in a circle. They were spinning faster than Sarah's eyes could follow, and in the split second she had to register the weapon, she wondered how much damage it would do if it even touched her. the woman squealed madly and thrust it at her. Sarah ducked to the side, blovking the thrust with her laser rifle, just behind the spinning blade. She forced it to beside and it buried itself in the mauled metal of the tank. She elbowed the raider in the ribs and kicked repeatedly until the berserker fell off the edge of the catwalk. Unfortunately the movements left her open to both the assault rifle carrying Wildman on the ledge above, and the one running at her with a tire iron. He kicked her to the ground and raised the tire iron. The spinning blade made a disgusting noise as it entered his chest, chopping neatly through his ribs and splattering the surrounding area with thick red blood. He made a gagging noise, blood pouring out his mouth, and slid to the floor of the catwalk. Sarah looked at Midea, who was holding the newly liberated autoaxe in her hands, a grim expression on her face. Assault rifle fire made them both jump. Sarah raised her laser rifle and shot the gunman in the head. The heat vaporized him, leaving a little cloud of dust which was quickly swept away by the wind.

"C'mon." the slave said, hoisting the horrific weapon over her shoulders, slinging it across her chest by the large handle. Sarah wondered for a moment how Midea could move so easily with such a large eight on her back, but then she remembered that the slave had been doing it for most of her life.

* * *

The four raiders skirted through the narrow space between two buildings, one with a minigun, two with Chinese assault rifles, and one with a flamethrower. The hunt had been going on for roughly six minutes, and already ten of their number were dead. They kept their eyes peeled in all directions. The Wanderer was proving to be much more difficult than the usual escaped slaves. Terminally difficult, in fact. They rounded a corner and stood face to face with their target, who was standing waiting for them. He immediately gunned down both of the assault rifle-wielding raiders, then grabbed the barrel of the flamer and pulled the raider forward, using his unfortunate victim's body to block the minigun's 5mm spray. He gunned down the attacker and slit the throat of his prisoner. The Lone Wanderer took a moment to strip the dead of their ammunition and then he moved on.

* * *

All around the steelyard, hidden in the shadows, attracted by the noise and action, the trog horde gathered, watching, and waiting for the moment to strike...

* * *

Sarah was on the roof now, fighting through the labyrinthine pipes. At the center of the roof was an enormous concrete cylinder, the size of a building. Another miniscule set of winding stairs lead to the top of that, upon which was yet another platform.

Trying not to look down, Sarah kept climbing. She had killed six people so far, had a bullet lodged painfully in her shoulder, but fought onwards, clinging desperately to the hope that if she survived, she would see her father and the wasteland again.

The circular platform turned out to be a ring, surrounding the great gaping hole in the center of the concrete structure. Rancid green smog drifted out of platform around it was holding up yet _another _set of catwalks, held up by a steel angle structure. More Wildmen were waiting there for her and Midea she fought harder than she ever had before, darting from steel girder to steel girder, from cover to cover, killing and killing and killing. She passed by a raider corpse, whose head had been vaporized not eight seconds before by Midea's laser pistol, and picked up the dead man's revolver. She turned it on a knife-wielding combatant, blowing five holes in his chest. Sarah dropped the revolver and dove behind an enormous low hanging I-beam, hearing the bullets pounding the other side. She squirmed to the end, trusting Midea not to let them flank her. Then pushed with her knees and slid out of cover, pounding the red beams into her attackers, all of whom dropped dead.

Midea fired two more shots and suddenly there was no more gunfire. Sarah lay on the cold metal, breathing hard. She stared up at what could only be described as a jungle-gym. An intricate construct of steel girders and catwalks rising ever higher into the sky.

She pulled herself to her feet and walked over to midea, who was staring over the edge. Sarah did the same and immediately backed away, her head spinning. They were so high that the ground wasn't even _visible _anymore. All she could make out was the tops of the taller buildings, and lost of shadows, occasionally lit up by assault rifle fire.

"We're too high." She muttered, weak at the knees.

Some growls and gurgles made her look to the giant smoking hole in the center of the platform. Midea quietly unslung her autoaxe, saying, "that sounded like a trog."

Sarah crept up to the edge fo the hole and peered reluctantly over the side.

"HATE!" a green blur screamed, leaping up at her from the darkness.

Sarah reacted without thinking, firing from the hip and turning it into a cloud of dust. More clawed hands gripped the edge of the pit. First five, then ten, then twenty, then more, the trogs pulled themselves up out of the darkness like ants from a hive. Midea bolted up the next flight of stairs, Sarah at her heels.

* * *

The Wanderer dropped down silently from his perch on a railcar. He landed behind a group of raiders and quietly disposed of two of them before the third even had a chance to notice. The last raider turned and managed to fire a three round burst before the Wanderer's shot hit him in the eye.

Alarmed shouts sounded as other raiders heard the shots, and were moving to investigate. He climbed back up the railcar, pulled out a few grenades, and waited. Three more raiders condensed around the bodies of their comrades. He tossed the grenades down into their midst, rolled down the opposite side of the railcar, and took off, hearing the shouts of surprise followed by a loud explosion.

* * *

Phantom sat in the hide-out, trapped to the chair by the frag mine under him. this hadn't been what he'd intended when he'd joined up with the Wanderer, but it's what he would have expected.

Unknown hands began to pound and scrape at the closed door. They grew louder and more insistent with each passing moment, and he was stuck in his seat, unable to do a thing about it. The door gave suddenly, weakened by the weight and direct hit from a mini-nuke almost ten minutes earlier.

Six trogs padded into the room. Phantom sat in his chair, staring at them with angry eyes.

"Fuck you!" he spat as the first trog leapt.

* * *

A bridge had been construct halfway up the catwalk jungle-gym. It was covered in row upon row of rollers the pre-war steelyard workers had used to transport ingots down to a lower level of the factory. The belt had long since been worn away, leaving a neat bridge between the tallest point in the Pitt, and some unknowable destination. Sarah leapt onto it, figuring that anywhere it lead would have been better than where she was at that moment: bruised, bleeding, and being treed by a swarm of savage beasts. The bridge was a way out.

Midea was thinking along the same lines, and they ran down the structure trying not to trip. The trog swarm followed them. Sarah stopped halfway down and turned for a moment to fire several shots into the swarm. Midea joined her and they stood shoulder to shoulder, firing at the ocean of trogs. The were crawling on top of the steel frame of the bridge, hanging on the sides and underneath. The entire thing appeared to be sheathed in a massive writhing green horde.

"I always knew I'd die here." Midea said above the hisses and gurgles.

"We're not dead yet!" Sarah gritted her teeth and kept firing.

"I'll stay, you go!" the slave told her.

"Not an option!"

The slave hesitated for a moment, then shoved her laser pistol into Sarah's holset and pushed the brotherhood soldier backwards, tossing her into an uncontrollable tumble down the bridge. Midea turned back to the swarm and unslung her auto axe.

_At least I'll see wild bill again…_ she thought, readying herself for the end.

* * *

Sarah could not slow down. She couldn't stop. All she could do was curl up into a ball and trust her battered armour to protect her from the worst of the impact. The bridge deposited her upon yet another black rusty catwalk. She rolled across it and slammed painfully into the concrete wall of the building. She uncurled and lay there, looking back up the bridge.

Midea was standing there, silhouetted against the pale green of the trog horde, almost all of which was on the bridge; it was sagging in the center.

Sarah saw Midea raise the auto axe high above her head, and bring it down, cutting the bridge in half. There was a deafening groan as the weakened metal buckled under the weight of so many bodies. The bolts connecting it to the steel structure at the top, and the concrete wall at the bottom, no longer supporting each other, all gave way, sending the slave woman and the trog horde tumbling into the depths of the steelyard. Sarah heard a faint crash far below. She tried to get to her feet, but stumbled slightly and fell back down. She tried to rise again, but her head was spinning and her knees seemed to have lost their strength.

She collapsed on the catwalk a third time and decided to accept the majority vote for a while.

* * *

The floor of the steelyard was chaos. The trogs had come in great swarms. The raiders were fighting the trogs, and the trogs were fighting the raiders, and the Lone Wanderer was fighting everybody.

He saw the bridge collapse, saw the indistinct figure defy the trog hordes, had seen the young blonde woman tumbling down to the bottom. He grinned to himself, using his Chinese assault rifle to gun down a few trogs who had decided to try and tackle him. He remembered exactly where the other end of the bridge lead.

He reloaded his assault rifle and gunned down a few raiders, all stealth forgotten. The labyrinth of alleyways eventually lead him to the bottom of a catwalk near the entrance to the steelyard. He started up it, not paying his surroundings any attention at all. He needed to know that Sarah was alive for a varety of reasons, the only one he was willing to admit to was that he didn't want to have tell her father she'd died on _his_ watch.

The sharp report of a sniper rifle echoed between the buildings and a trog dropped dead at his feet. He turned back to see Phantom the Raider walking up to him. two 10mm submachine guns were hanging from a pair of holsters at his hips. He was carrying a sniper rifle in his arms.

"Dey'ah not so tough!" he said, walking up to the Wanderer. "ya just gotta make sure dey don't see ya."

"Where did you get that?" the Wanderer asked warily, pointing at the sniper rifle.

"From your little stash. Dey got in. One udda bastards decided to jump at me. It went up, I jumped down, and that fuckin' mine blew him to bits. Him an' his buddies." The raider was very pleased with himself. His smile lessened slightly "I got a piece'o shrapnel the size of a grape in my ass!"

"My heart bleeds for you." the Wanderer said.

"I'm on your fuckin' side!" the raider insisted.

The Wanderer gave him a long examination, then nodded. He turned and climbed up the stairway, jumping a gap where the catwalk had collapsed. He ascended a second flight of stairs and reached the platform where Sarah's inert form lay, unmoving.

Phantom stood watch as the Wanderer crouched beside Sarah and carefully injected her with two stimpacks.

Her eyes opened and she groaned, looking up at him with a dazed expression.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"All business, huh?" she tried to smile, but what wound have been a beautiful look was marred by the myriad of bruises and swelling, "I gotta stop making a habit of getting rescued."

She was bleeding from a hole in her shoulder, and looked more beaten up than he had ever seen. He gave her an injection of Med-x and some water. She spat it all out, but at least she looked more awake and alert. She gave him a serious look, "Midea is dead."

"I know. We have to go." the Wanderer said. he helped her to her feet and down the stairs to where Phantom was waiting.

Sarah stared at the raider, "and how are _you _alive?"

"Hey," the medic looked hurt, "Ya don't get nowhere in the raider business without knowin' how ta take care of yourself. Besides," he grinned, "all da trogs were goin' after you, an' all the raiders were goin' after _him_."

Sarah and the Wanderer exchanged a look. The raider lead the way down the stairs to the alley below, where the Wanderer took over. He turn and gave them a quick briefing. "We're heading across the steelyard to a little hatchway in the ground. I think the raiders are mostly dead. But there might still be trogs around, so we move fast, quiet, and only shoot if we need to. Follow me."

He lead them. along the alleyways, using his silenced assault rifle to dispose of the few trogs they encountered along the way. The swarm seemed to have retreated back into the darkness, leaving a select few behind to feed on the many bodies littering the steelyard. They passed by the wreckage of the giant bridge, which had enclosed Midea's body in a steel tomb, safe from the reach of any trog. Sarah stopped a moment to pay her respects, then they continued along to the small hatch in a corner by the railcars. The Wanderer opened it using the key he had showed Sarah weeks before, and ushered them through. Then he climbed down into the darkness himself and pulled it shut, locking it behind him.

* * *

**Turns out writing an action scene for the Lone Wanderer is freakin hard! I'm not entirely sure i can top what you guys are already imagining. We already know he can handle basically anything, so there's no suspense...**

**Midea had to die in the Pitt. I'm sorry but it adds symmetry... if that makes any sense. Or i'm crazy like Dr. Steinman. One of the two...**

**As for Phantom, i warmed up to the guy when i first played through the Pitt. I was always pissed off that he had to die if you took wernher's side (which i didn''t do very often). and that's why i decided to save him in the first place. I wasn't about to kill him off, but it wouldnt' make sense for the Wanderer to trust him just because he said so. That and honestly, the Citadel needs a proper medic, not a robot.**

**anywho, questions, comments or concerns, lay'em on me.**


	20. Chapter 20

Modus Operandi 20

Leo looked up as another human soldier took a seat in front of him, replacing the female. They were sitting in the dark tunnel. The soldiers took turns guarding him. he had been tied up and left a little ways down the tunnel. Twice a day, they would drop a can of dog food in front of him. Yet he seemed perfectly happy.

"It's been a week and then some since we picked you up…" the human said.

"Yes, I appreciated you sharing your supplies. What is your name, human?"

"Colvin"

"Thank you, Colvin." The Supermutant extended a welcoming hand, which Colvin did not take. The soldier sat down at the wall opposite, he had a laser rifle in one hand, and a cross hanging from the other.

"You believe in a god?" the mutant asked, lowering his hand and resuming his meal.

"I do." Colvin replied, waving the cross. "I pray before and after every battle."

"Indeed? And what do you pray?"

"That my brothers and I survive, and that any muties we meet die." The soldier said.

"You kill without mercy?"

"I see it more as releasing a possessed soul from torment." Colvin observed.

The mutant laughed. "how close you are to the truth…"

"And what do mutants believe?" the brotherhood knight asked.

"My brothers don't believe in anything beyond the fact that killing is fun."

"That's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from a Supermutant." Colvin said with some satisfaction.

"Indeed? Do not tell me that you and your brothers do not make little games out of how many of mine you can kill. Or out of who can get the best shot…" the mutant said, blindsiding him.

"Well we can do that because we're the ones who're getting our asses shot off…"

"And my brothers are not?"

"Well no, but they're…dumber…" Colvin muttered, well aware that the giant in front of him was at least as smart as he was.

To his surprise, the mutant was nodding, "Indeed. They are dumber. They are armed with sledgehammers and hunting rifles. They have no armour…yet they have managed to keep your wasteland embroiled in a twenty-year war. A war, in fact, which you are losing."

"We're not-"

"Every year the brotherhood is less able to cope with the Supermutants.

"Well look," Colvin argued, "that's because they can travel over the entire wasteland, and-"

"Have you ever read Sun Tzu's the Art of War?" Leo asked.

"No I haven't," said Colvin, "What's it about?"

The mutant gave him a deadly serious look, "it is about the Art of War. In it, Sun Tzu says that any army may march great distances without distress if it marches through country where the enemy is not. The brotherhood only covers the inner ruins themselves, leaving my brothers able to maneuver without resistance. Sun Tzu says that you may be sure of succeeding in your attack if you only attack places which are undefended, and that you may insure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions which cannot be attacked. My brothers have followed this rule to the letter. Yours have not. My brothers may attack any settlement, and pull more recruits from that settlement to make them march against you. While you sit in safety in the citadel, they strike at the weak points and rob you of your resources. What good is the citadel if it be the only human settlement in the wastes? You are fighting this war like fools."

"Wow…" said Colvin, "alright, what do you suggest?"

"Do you know of the Wanderer?"

"Of course."

"He is an intelligent fighter. I very much doubt that he has read The Art of War, but he certainly understands it's principles. gather your forces to form a united front, then divide and conquer. He did this with the enclave, first at Raven Rock, then again at the landcrawler. He destroyed their unity and in doing so, forced them into split fractions, allowing your united force to confront only small unorganized portions of the whole. My brothers have done the same to you."

"Well yes, but the citadel is still around, right?" Colvin said, "where as the Landcrawler and raven rock-"

"The principal remains the same!" the mutant insisted, "Your forces, while totally safe, are also frozen and useless, whereas their may go where they please and do as they please. You are not in a war, you are in a siege. You are not on the front lines, you are already behind enemy lines, and they are perfectly happy to let you sit there and rot while they wreak havoc upon what should be your territory."

The entire rest of the Lyons' Pride had stopped to listen at this point. They were watching the Supermutant with rapt attention.

"So how do we turn the tables?" Glade asked, taking a seat beside Colvin.

The Supermutant sat with his chin in his hand, thinking hard. "My brothers appear to operate in small, splintered groups, any one of which may be attacked and wiped out with little resistance. Yet none of these slaughters have stopped them. This suggests that their actions are merely a farce. They are a centralized, united force."

"Right. Because they're smart enough for that…" Kodiak said.

"Or they've been tricking us for all this time…" Glade offered.

The mutant said, "You must find this center and destroy it. See that it stays destroyed. If you wish to engage the enemy, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some place which he will be obliged to relieve."

"The hell does that mean?" Dusk demanded.

"Make for those targets your enemy finds valuable and lie in wait for him there. Or take them to your strong point and turn this war into the direct siege for which you are prepared." Leo explained. "Where do they fight the hardest? What targets do they appear to find valuable?"

"They fight like the blazes over the mall." Colvin said.

"Why?" Leo asked encouragingly, "What do they need from the mall?"

"Well it's strategically important." Glade said. "all roads in the inner ruins lead to it eventually…"

"Yes. And?"

"They mostly go for the Capitol building, though." Kodiak pointed out. "They fight for the rest of it so that they can keep that part."

"And why is that, do you suppose?"

The Pride wracked their brains.

"Shall I spell it out for you?" Leo asked.

"Feel free." Dusk snapped sarcastically.

"The mutants seeks one thing: the destruction of your race. To achieve it, they require two things: the virus they use to turn yours into theirs, and subjects to use it on. These are their objectives. If you wish to defeat them, you must deprive them of at least one of those things."

This announcement was greeted with stunned silence. Then Colvin asked, "…Why, after twenty years, has no one realized this?"

Leo smiled cheerfully, "I don't believe many of your comrades have decided to chat with a Supermutant. Indeed twelve days ago, you were ready to shoot me on sight. You have spent your resources winning every battle but losing the war. You have committed all of your stratagems on the basis of one single assumption: that my brothers are stupid. And you are correct, if you are referring to the average sledgehammer wielding mutant. However somewhere, someone very intelligent decided that the average sledgehammer wielding mutant is all you would see. And behind your back, while like rabid dogs you took every small piece of meat offered to you, they have been taking this wasteland from you, draining you of your resources, and weakening you to the point where, when the hammer comes down, none of you will survive."

"Don't you dare threaten us!" Dusk said, pulling out her sniper rifle.

The firearm was promptly yanked from her hands by Gallows, who had remained silent until that point. He bent down and unshackled Leo. "It wasn't a threat, you idiot. It was a fact. Tell us more."

* * *

The sewer they'd dropped into was dark and grim. the walls were slimy with muck, and a horrid smell filled the air. Off in the distance, Sarah could hear the rhythmic dripping of water on rock. The Wanderer flicked a switch on his pip boy and lit up a small area with the comforting yellow glow.

"Follow me," he said.

"So what's da plan, boss?" Phantom asked.

"We're going to shut off the floodlights in uptown." The Wanderer said quietly, peering into the darkness, silenced assault rifle at the ready.

"No shit?" Phantom stopped dead.

"Is there a problem?" the Wanderer asked, also stopping. He was ahead of Phantom, and facing in the opposite direction, but Sarah could tell that this gave the raider no advantage at all.

"But that'll kill…everybody."

"Yes." Said the Wanderer.

"I mean…_everybody_?"

"I know."

"Can someone clue me in here?" Sarah asked.

"Dem floodlights are de only thing holdin' back da trogs." Phantom explained, "Ya know the giant hordes waitin in the steelyard?"

"Yes?"

"That ain't nuthin compared to what's waitin' right beyond the floodlights. What, you think the Supermutants are bad? You gotta fight'em in groups of what? a dozen at most? Da trogs will come in dozens…hundreds…"

"Thousands." The Wanderer said, "they've been growing and multiplying since before the scourge."

"There can't be _that _many." Sarah reasoned.

"Why not? Imagine if the Supermutants had been left with their population growth unchecked for twenty years. There was no brotherhood here to cut the hordes down to size. Just the floodlights to hold them off." The Wanderer argued.

"Every time a slave or raider turns into one, we don't kill'em, we just drop'em past the floodlights." Phantom mused, "in retrospect, we really should'a wasted the bullets."

"Twenty-twenty hindsight." the Wanderer agreed.

"I'm amazed ya managed to survive on da ground like that, with all them trogs out there." the raider continued, "I mean when yer up on the catwalks, yer kinda safe, ya know? Like, dey can only come at'ya from one direct, and you can hold'em off. Thats what saved us the first time. But down on the ground… they swarm you. And on top of that, you got all dem raiders trying to gun you down…"

"Actually that's a good point," Sarah said, a question which had been bubbling at the back of her mind rose to the fore, "First the explosion on the bridge, then the fight in the steelyard… how did you manage to survive?"

The Wanderer sighed and looked from one to the other. Obviously neither of them were willing to give up until they got an answer.

"Why do you care so much?"

"As a medic, it interests me." said Phantom.

"And I want to know exactly how it is that you aren't dead yet." Sarah told him, "remember, we watched you fight through to GNR, we watched you fight to the purifier, and we watched you fight through Adams Airforce Base. You've taken more shots than a full squad of brotherhood soldiers combined. Yet you always get back up again. How are you still alive?"

"Alright…" the Wanderer nodded, "alright. Look, you wander around the wastes enough…and things start to happen to you. You develop resistances to certain things. Shit just happens. Back when I first got out of the vault, I got a job with a woman named moira in megaton. She helped me write the wasteland survival guide."

"I know of it." Sarah said. in fact, the book had become a valuable training tool used on new recruits. It's insights and wisdom gave brotherhood soldiers a new level of mobility and survival skills which came in handy during the longer campaigns in the city ruins.

"I was the field agent." The Wanderer said. "I did a lot of stupid things, one of them being getting irradiated above six hundred rads."

His companions stared.

"Fuck me sideways…" said Phantom.

"What happened?" said Sarah.

The Wanderer shrugged, "and…I mutated. When I get above four hundred rads, I heal. I can't be crippled, and I can keep fighting long past the point I should've fallen down. I'm rad resistant, too."

"That doesn't explain how you survived the bridge explosion though…" Sarah said. "that was huge."

"Whewn pre-war cars explode, they shower the surrounding area in radiation." The Wanderer explained, "yes, the explosion knocked me out, and did some serious fucking damage, but

"Ya obviously didn't fall in the river." Phantom said.

"Obviously!" the Wanderer snapped, "I'm rad _resistant_ not rad _proof_. I was still on the bridge…just under a pile of debris, and kinda not conscious…but I've drunk so much irradiated water I practically have a lead belly. The fist time I was here, Ashur gave me a booster shot of some kind. Raised my resistance even further. I know for a fact that I can survive at least twice as long in an irradiated zone. I don't even feel the effects until I have advanced radiation poisoning. And at that point, it heals me…"

"That's horrible." Sarah said.

The Wanderer shrugged, "I prefer to think of them as perks. They can be very helpful…"

"How many of these…mutations have you undergone?" Sarah demanded, seeing the Wanderer in a new light.

He shrugged. "I don't know…I got a chip in my eye from the commonwealth. It helps me aim better."

"Yeah, I heard about that." Sarah snapped. "You gave up an innocent man to do it."

"And the extra boost helped me rescue twenty-six different prisoners from supermutants." The Wanderer replied evenly, "Not to mention Paladin Hoss and initiate Pek, both the _day after I got it_!"

"Yes…" said Sarah, losing some of her steam; she had trained Pek herself, "And the Brotherhood did appreciate that…"

"So you slaughter all the slavers in paradise falls, but when those slaves aren't from around there…you just _let'em go_?" Said Phantom, who had spent more than a fair amount of time in the capital wasteland himself. "Got yerself a little double standard there…"

"Bullshit. My standing orders have always been to defend the people of the capital wasteland at any cost to myself personally, and at any cost to anyone _outside_ the capital wasteland. The robot was not _from_ the capital wasteland. And honestly, as Harkness, he was a bit of an asshole."

"That's no reason to give him up like that!" Sarah insisted.

"No, but the ability to better execute my standing orders certainly was. " The Wanderer told her, turning to face her fully and meet her gaze with those cold blue eyes, "my father gave up everything including me, and a peaceful life in the vault to do try and better the lives of everyone in the capital wasteland. If I were a quarter of the man he was, I'd be doing the same thing. Besides, how else am I supposed to define myself; I don't belong up there, Amata-" he stopped suddenly, and all the cracks in his stoic armour sealed themselves. His face became cold, sour, and resentful.

"Who is-?" Phantom began.

"Shut up." The Wanderer snapped, flicking off his pip boy light, "eyes down, no talking."

He turned on his heel and continued the march down the tunnel.

Phantom leaned in to Sarah, "I think all'o dem stealthboys drove your boyfriend a little crazy."

"I've only ever seen him use it once." She murmured, watching the Lone Wanderer's back curiously in the meager light.

"No talking." The Wanderer repeated automatically.

**Alright alright…I know I'm taking some liberties with the trogs. But really, the way they are in-game? They're not a threat to anything.**

**And also, I know not all the raiders come from the pitt, but seriously, there aren't enough people in the wasteland to replenish the supply at the rate any decent LW kills them off, so they must be coming from somewhere, and it's reasonable to expect that that somewhere is the pitt.**

**As for Leo's scene, if you guys are alright with the premise I just set up here, then I smell a sequel in the works.**


	21. Chapter 21

Modus Operandi 21

The three worn-out companions stood in front of a bank of electronics. A large green computer was set just above it. A sign had been painted in red, white, and black, with an arrow pointing into the next hallway. The sign said: Uptown

"I think this is it." The Wanderer said, activating the computer, "Just give me a moment to hack it."

"Did you learn how to do that in the vault?" Phantom asked.

"I learned a lot of stuff in the vault." The Wanderer said quietly, staring at the computer screen as if trying to solve a puzzle. It was slow going. Every minute or so, he would click another button, then mutter to himself. Once he actually shut the computer down and logged back in, starting the whole process from the beginning.

Eventually he turned to Sarah and Phantom, both of whom had taken seats. The raider was actually dozing off.

"I got in." the Wanderer said. Sarah got to her feet and gave Phantom a kick.

"This should do it…" the Wanderer raised his hand and brought it down on the 'Enter' key. Sarah grabbed his wrist at the last second.

"Wait…" she said quietly, "do we really want to do this? I mean…"

The Wanderer slapped the enter key. The lights on the monitor flickered slightly and then the entire thing shut down.

"Yes," said the Wanderer. He backed away a few steps and opened up on the entire system with his Chinese assault rifle. Then he directed both of his companions into the hallway and kicked a hole in the side of the machine, where his bullets had weakened the thin metal cover. He placed a frag grenade into the hole, just to insure that noone could possibly turn the lights back on.

"Lets get moving." He ordered, leading them quickly back the way they came. "This tunnel is going to be full of trogs in a few minutes. We need to be in the steel yard by then."

They broke into a run, down the stairs and through the cramped passageways until at last they reached the ladder. The pitter patter of trog feet echoed down the passageways behind them as they climbed the ladder. Sarah was the last out and she felt something grab at her foot as she clambered out. Its grip wasn't strong enough to keep, and it fell back into the darkness. The Wanderer dumped in a few grenades and then closed and locked the hatch.

"We make for the other side of the bridge. Don't stop for anything," he said, passing his Chinese assault rifle to Sarah, and trading his modified assault rifle for Phantom's sniper rifle.

* * *

"You see, there are six types of terrain," Leo explained. The Lyons' Pride was gathered in a circle around him, listening carefully. "Accessible ground upon which both sides may maneuver freely, entangled ground, temporizing ground upon which neither side would gain an advantage by attacking, narrow passages, precipitous heights, and positions a great distance from the enemy. You are caught defending the DC ruins within narrow passages, and on temporizing and entangling ground. None are ideal for defense. Sun Tzu says that in regards to Narrow passages, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy, for they will not win a battle in a strongly garrisoned passageway. To defend entangled ground, you must not give an inch, for once the enemy has attacked, they may not retreat, and so for them disaster will ensue. To repel an enemy attack on temporizing ground, you must first goad your enemy into an attack. Retreat and entice him forward, then deliver your attack when he is exposed, and on the move instead of dug in. This should not be too difficult to do given my brothers' intelligence."

This was greeted with silence as the Pride tried to remember and digest it.

"You must have been heavily involved in a war, to know this much…" Glade said.

"No!" said Leo, "In fact I am a pacifist. I do not enjoy carrying firearms, and avoid hurting anything if I can, everything from the smallest boatfly, to the largest behemoth. I would rather run than fight."

"A pacifist?" Dusk asked stone-faced.

"Indeed." Said the Supermutant, "Would that we'd lay down our arms and reach out to each other with brotherly compassion, the world would be a better place…"

This statement was greeted with stunned silence. Colvin broke it with a statement. He said, "Well now I've seen everything."

* * *

Like the breaking of a damn, the green swarm flowed like water through the streets and over the rooftops of the Pitt. The population ran, slaves and slavers alike to escape the swarm. The slowest ones were caught and disappeared behind the ocean of green. The faster ones made it to the center of the Plaza in downtown, where they were slaughtered like rats, clambering over one another trying to escape. A haunting echo of the events twenty years before.

The screams and gunfire could be heard for miles, and to the few safe listeners, they lasted for what seemed like hours.

They could be heard in the train yard, where the Wanderer and Phantom were packing the railcart with supplies. Sarah was standing a little ways behind them, listening to the noise. Tears were streaming openly down her face as memories, both past and present, collided within her. She said, "That's the second time I've watched that city burn."

"Sarah?" the Lone Wanderer walked up and placed a hand on her shoulder, "We need to move. Any survivors are going to be coming over that bridge in a few hours, after the trogs have calmed down, and I want us to be long gone."

"God Damn it!" she almost screamed at him, "Can you stop being a robot for once and show some fucking humanity? We just slaughtered and entire civilization and you don't seem to give a shit!"

"It's Ashur's fault." The Wanderer said, listening to the noise dispassionately.

"You pushed the button! And you didn't even hesitate!"

"He forced my hand." the Wanderer countered, "I told him exactly what would happen if he didn't agree to my terms."

"What were they?" Sarah demanded, trying to understand why, once again, the city across the river was being torched. What could be so important as to require it again?

"Remember my standing orders?"

"Defend the wasteland's interests at any cost to the outsiders…" Sarah parroted sarcastically, "I'm sure the wasteland could handle a few raiders…"

"It's not just the raiders themselves," The Wanderer said, "This city was keeping the wasteland slave trade going. And it wasn't just the human costs either. I've wandered the entire wasteland from Rivet City to Raven Rock, and from the Dunwich building to the Republic of Dave. Believe me, there is a finite supply of food, of medical supplies, of all the basic necessities for human existence. Radaway, for instance, is not going to be around forever. Now with the purifier, the need for that'll decrease over time. But Ashur was sending raider forage parties to take what little could have sustained us in the meantime. The Pitt was sucking the wasteland dry of food, water, medicine, and people. What little is left is easy prey for the supermutants. This had to happen. I didn't want it to end with the Pitt being scourged again-"

"Then why do it?" Sarah demanded, "I'm sure there were better options! I know you used a threat, do you always have to be a hardass?"

"It's them or us!" the Wanderer defended, getting visibly annoyed, "And yes, I do always have to be a hardass, Sarah! Out there in the wastes, there's just me! No citadel, no army of 'Wanderers' I can call on for help. I've got no family left. No friends. Just a bunch people who owe me favors. It's always favors! I operate on favors; give one here, take one there and try to balance things out. Make a deal, break a deal and _always_ be prepared to carry a threat through to its conclusion if I have to! It doesn't excuse my actions and it doesn't justify them, but it gives me credibility, which is far more useful."

"Some actions _need _justification." Sarah said angrily.

"I gave you my reasons," the Wanderer, "I'm sorry if they aren't good enough, but…" he shrugged and looked at the ground, "they're all I have. Now can we please get out of here?"

* * *

They sat on the cart, watching the small dwindling speck of light fade into the blackness. Phantom had cured up on one of the blankets and was taking a nap. Sarah looked across the cart at the Lone Wanderer. His unreadable eyes found her own. She sighed, "Your shield is up again."

He frowned, "my shield?"

"Yeah. That stupid wall you always put up when you're dealing with the rest of the world. You said you had no friends and it's a small wonder…"

This comment seemed to confuse him more than anger him. "What do you mean 'small wonder'?"

Sarah thought for a moment, "you aren't too good at being friendly and personable. I guess…"

"I spend almost all my time around people and creatures that are trying to kill me. What do you expect?"

"I expect you to open up sometimes." she told him. "I expect you to talk, occasionally."

He stayed silent, watching her with a puzzled frown.

"Tell you what," she said, "I'll start. Do you enjoy it?"

"Enjoy what?"

"This whole…thing you've created. This Wasteland cleansing badass? Being the Lone Wanderer? Don't you want any more out of life than that?"

"I learned a lot of hard lessons when I walked out of the vault." the Wanderer told her, "One of the first and most important of them was that life isn't about what you want. it's about what you can deal with. And I can deal with more than most, so I get shouldered with more than most ever do."

"You could stop."

He laughed, "And then what? Watch the raiders and the supermutants tear apart my father's work. Everything he sacrificed so much for? Watch you and the rest of the brotherhood slowly get killed off trying to do it all by yourselves. No, I don't enjoy any of it. I don't enjoy doing this, or being this, but someone has to. And I'm not going to let my dad's work go to waste."

"So it _does_ bother you. What's the worst part?"

He stared hollowly into the tunnel behind them, "The part scares me more than anything else is what'll happen if I succeed."

Sarah stared. The revelation had completely blindsided her. "What do you mean succeed won't that be good?"

The Wanderer stared down into the tunnel. "I don't want to talk anymore."

"Too bad," Sarah replied, almost being smug, "you brought it up. What scares you about the wasteland being clean, free and healthy?"

The Lone Wanderer didn't answer.

"Why would you say that if you didn't want to talk about it?" She asked, crossing her arms, "you know what I think?"

"What?" he snapped.

"I think you _do_ want to talk about it, but you don't know how. And even if you did, no one out here is friendly enough to give you the chance." Sarah knew she had hit her mark. She could almost see the cracks appearing in his stoic armour. "So what is it about success that scares you?"

"Stop it…" he said quietly, but in his tone, she recognized the same pleading which she had plied Ashur with during her short stay in Haven. To much ground had been explored, and Sarah found that she couldn't' go back now if she wanted to. She didn't want to anyway.

She said, "Let's explore the idea, shall we? The wasteland is free of slavers, raiders, supermutants, the talon company… we have clean, fresh water. And out of clean fresh water has come clean, fresh, radiation free crops. No more need to scavenge for food…we have a centralized government, order and prosperity…and where are you?" her face fell as the realization hit her, "…you aren't there."

"Where in the civilized world is there a place for the Lone Wanderer from vault 101?" the Wanderer asked quietly, "can you imagine me as some kind of politician?"

"No." Sarah admitted, "not with the way _you_ negotiate."

"I'm a weapon." he said. To her own shock and surprise, Sarah saw that his expression was one of pain and loss deeper than any she'd seen in the Brotherhood. He wasn't crying, but it was a close-run thing. "I'm a tool. A fucking mop is only used when there's a mess on the floor. I'm a human version of liberty prime, and I act the part because I can't even remember how to act any other part. The wasteland drags me out when I'm needed but what happens when I'm not? I don't have any friends or family …no reason to exist…I'm trying to make the wasteland a better place. Back in the vault, there was never any danger of getting shot at! People were allowed to live and learn and laugh and grow without having to look over their shoulders. That's what my father wanted for it."

"If you lose, you're dead. If you win, you're obsolete," Sarah nodded, watching him closely. He was cracking. The feral blue eyes were very nearly gone, and she began to see, underneath the red bandana, the weapons, behind the feral blue eyes and the silent stoic attitude, a scared young man.

"Y'know," he said, "what'll probably happen is that I'll move west. I'll keep getting pushed back, solving the problems on the outskirts until one day some lucky fucker gets a lucky fucking shot. The wasteland'll swallow me up, bones and all. I'll bleed out in the middle of some sun-scorched desert without a friendly soul around and noone'll even have known my name."

"What _is_ your name?" Sarah asked, aware that the question only emphasized his point.

"It's Jason," The Wanderer said bitterly, "Jason Howlett. Thank you for asking. You're now the only person in the wastes who knows."

Sarah stared at the newly christened Jason. The name didn't fit him at all. She expected something more badass or exotic, like Dante, Damien, Marcus, or Magnus. Lance, even, Perhaps an angelic name like Gabriel, Gideon, or Michael…but not Jason. It seemed too…normal.

"When I die," the Lone Wanderer said, "when the wasteland swallows me up, it'll be the Lone Wanderer who dies. Jason Howlett never existed in the first place."

"You're a member of the Brotherhood, though!" Sarah argued. "We'd care if you got killed."

"Really?" Jason stretched his shirt down to reveal a well-muscled chest. "Notice anything missing?"

"Hair?" Sarah asked, trying not to smile.

The Wanderer's- no, _Jason's _jaw dropped. He sighed and stared at the wall, an amused look plastering itself on his reluctant features. Sarah realized it was the first time shed ever seen the man smile. Sure, he often did the 'battlefield smile' after performing a particularly difficult shot, or finishing the fight to find that he'd come through yet another battle unscathed, but a smile of _genuine amusement_ at a harmless joke was something foreign to him.

And right then it was changing from an expression of genuine amusement, to one of genuine sadness. "A dogtag," He said, "I was last at the citadel a few weeks ago. You weren't there, but I shot two bottles out of the air."

"I've heard the story," Sarah said, "Dusk hates you for that, you know."

"She can get in line," He said absently, "Anyway I was last at the citadel a few weeks ago. Then I left."

"And?" Sarah asked.

"And what?" Jason shrugged, the steel wall behind his eyes seemed to have faded, "You guys went about your business. Three days passed. And you guys went about your business. Weeks passed, and not even Three-Dog commented that I was gone. He just re-ran old broadcasts. You've got the entire brotherhood of steel out looking for you. The Lyons' Pride, Gallows, your dad, all the rest, I doubt they're ever truly going to stop."

"We have a three-day rule," Sarah said, "After that, we have to stop searching."

"That's three days more than anyone's ever bothered to look for me." Jason said. Normally that comment would have annoyed Sarah. It would have sounded whiny, but under the circumstances, it hit her where it hurt.

"Well that's because you're the…" Sarah stopped, fully aware that her words were only going to exacerbate things. But she found she had to continue regardless. Nothing could be resolved until the depths of the problem had been fully explored. "…The Messiah. The Wasteland Savior…Last Best Hope for Humanity. You are an unkillable, unstoppable wasteland cleansing machine. And you know what, the Brotherhood believes it!" as she spoke, the man seemed to almost physically shrink, drawing himself inwards, as if afraid of the titles, "You're the one person in the wasteland who doesn't need help. The one person we _don't_ have to worry about. All the rules about living in the wasteland: always travel in groups. Be heavily armed. Everyone's lost someone…those don't apply to you. You go to places where human beings _can't_ go, and you _always_ come back."

"I _have_ lost someone," his voice was soft and frail.

Sarah had to wrack her brains to remember who, and then felt ashamed when the answer surfaced: His father.

She had no idea how she'd react if her own father were killed. It was impossibility, though some of Ashur's threats had made her dwell on the scenario. Her father had always been there, and would always be there. The idea of him not being there was as unfathomable as the surface of the moon. The Wanderer had probably felt the same way about his own father.

The Wanderer had gathered himself inwards, his arms around his knees. He wasn't looking at her, but was focused on the ground.

Sarah quietly rose, walked across the cart, and sat beside him, putting her arm around his shoulders. She laid her head against his own, "_I_ know your name now, Jason."

* * *

**Okay, so I wasn't entirely content with the last chapter. It got across a lot of vital ideas I am still determined to get into this story, but the wanderer as I write him is a lot more subtle, and a lot harder to crack than that. Especially when he showed no signs of guilt beforehand. He wouldn'tjust pour his guts out like that, so I decided to do a rewrite and stretch it out a little longer…I think I like the result better than the original. As for the age issue, I've decided to ignore it completely.**

**From a reader relatability perspective, it may not have been a good idea to give him a name, but for the LW/Sarah Romance, it was a major breakthrough which needed to happen. I'll still refer to him as The Wanderer, because it's honestly better that way. Besides, I'm hoping that romance-wise, it'll pay off later in the story.**


	22. Chapter 22

Modus Operandi 22

Fresh air flowed over Sarah's face, waking her gently. She was still caught in the inky blackness of the tunnel, but she was suddenly aware of fresh, sweet, wasteland air. Slightly cool, very dry, but a vast improvement upon the Pitt's dilapidated chemical fog. Sleeping beside her, though on his own separate blanket, was the Lone Wanderer. Jason Howlett…

He had taken his bandana off, and for the first time since Sarah had fallen into this…adventure, he was actually sleeping. Not waiting, not tuned out, but sleeping soundly.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, barely able to make out the shape of her own hands by the meager light of the lamp Phantom had set up. The raider was awake as well, sitting patiently on the edge of the cart. Sarah crept up quietly and joined him.

"Mornin' Miss Lyons." he said.

"Morning." She watched the track flow by plank by wooden plank. Each one which disappeared under the cart meant she was one step closer to home.

"So I bin thinkin'," the raider said, "about my future."

"What about it?"

"I don't wanna just get to the wasteland and disappear. I'm a medic, and a raider, but more a medic than a raider, if you get my meaning."

"What are you getting at?" Sarah asked.

"Well…" the raider started awkwardly, "I'm betting that you brotherhood assh- soldiers, get hurt a lot. An' I dunno whether you got a doctor working there at the citadel, but if there's a job opening…"

Sarah stared.

"…Then I'd like to apply for it…I guess." the raider trailed off into silence.

"How did you become a raider, anyway?" Sarah asked.

"I wasn't born one. I'll tell you that much. An' I ain't into the whole cut the bodies up and hang'em from meathooks insanity either. I just…" Phantom shrugged, "sometimes an honest life doesn't give you what you need to survive. Not all of us are born into a huge organization with tons of resources. And not all of us are born in a vault either. I figured I'd rather steal and live than die with a clean conscience. I know not everyone thinks like that…but to me it's the only sensible way to go."

"That's not honorable." Sarah told him.

"Honor is nice when you can afford it." Phantom said, "but I bet you ain't gone weeks without food and days without water."

Sarah shook her head.

"Life for the average person isn't fun or pleasant. More often than not, you're starving an' constantly thirsty, low on ammo an' being hunted by god knows what. you take what you get when you can." he shrugged, "An' then when ya find a group of boys who're willing to take it with you, an' they got loose women and relative safety in numbers…it's only a small leap to see it as the right way to go especially if yer capable of patchin'em up after they get hurt, then they get real grateful." he stared dreamily into themiddle distance, "especially the women."

Sarah examined the man. He was in his mid-thirties, older than her. He had a small Mohawk and a black gristly beard. Two intelligent eyes had long before been forced into a permanent squint.

"Where do you come from, Phantom?"

"The Midwest somewhere…ended up in the Pitt…" the raider shrugged, "it don't matter. the great thing 'bout bein' a raider is that the past don't matter nearly as much as the present and the future. Ya don't have to pay attention to consequences or anything like that. All that matters is the future, an' mine is lookin' pretty bleak right now."

Sarah sighed. She patted the man on the shoulder, "My father leads the brotherhood of steel, and right now our medic is a robot who has a nasty habit of chopping up his patients. I'm sure I can put in a good word for you."

"I'd appreciate that," said Phantom.

* * *

Leo reached forward and tapped Glade on the shoulder. The brotherhood soldier gave a start and blinked a few times, trying to clear his eyes. "what's up?"

The mutant extended a long arm and pointed down the tunnel. A small light was just visible, but growing steadily larger.

"Help me wake up the others!" Glade urged, moving among his comrades and giving them a few kicks.

"I'd rather not." Leo said, remaining perfectly still.

The Pride stood and assembled blearily. Leo stayed seated, watching the small speck of light.

"We got company." Kodiak said, pointing down the tunnel.

"is it Sarah?" Colvin asked, squinting.

"It would be wise to find out before any of you take any actions either way." Leo said. "I have been timing it, and I feel that it is moving at a jogging speed. I would suggest a scout to determine the exact nature of the visitors. Does anyone possess a stealth boy?"

"I do." gallows stepped forward.

"Very well. Wait in the darkness until you can see them, then send a message back to the rest of the Pride and tell them whether or not we should prepare for battle."

* * *

Gallows crouched in an alcove at the side of the tunnel. He activated the stealth boy and waited in silence, watching the cart inch closer. Eventually he could make out shapes moving around on it. A young woman was sitting on the front. She was blonde, but her hair was all wrong. She was also wearing a beaten set of combat armour. And the man had a Mohawk.

Not the right people.

Gallows raised his laser rifle, getting the two travelers in his sights…

The tip of a sawed-off bumped gently off the side of his head.

"Not a good idea." said a voice right beside him. Gallows dove away and turned. The Lone Wanderer was crouched right beside the spot he'd been sitting at not a moment before. The vault dweller gave him a playful salute. "That's Sarah Lyons on that cart. I'd go back and report the news to the rest of your squad."

With those words, and without the aid of a stealth boy, he seemed to melt into the darkness, fading from sight like a ghost.

* * *

The first thing Glade did when he laid eyes on Sarah Lyons was gasp. It asn't a manly thing to do, but he couldn't help himself; She did not look like at all like Sarah Lyons. Her face was scratched and dirty, covered in muck. She was wearing battered combat armour. her shoulder had been bandaged up, and multiple cuts and bruises seemed to cover every inch of exposed skin. Her hair was bunched up, dirty, and poking out at odd angles, obviously infused with something sticky instead of being done up in her usual Wendy the Welder hairdo. It looked as if she'd had a very rough night.

The worst part of it was her eyes. They had a hollow, wild look to them which he had normally associated with the Lone Wanderer.

The Pride was standing in shocked silence. Colvin cleared his throat nervously and stepped forward, something was obviously eating at him. He said, "Sarah, I'm sorry that we left you behind."

"There were two overlords in that pit." Sarah replied, "You guys did what you had to."

"Well yeah, but-"

"You couldn't get to me. That's all there is to it," the Sentinel said. She glanced back into the darkness where Glade strongly suspected that the Wanderer was watching, "Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. I think you made the right choice, for the most part."

The entire squad appeared to visibly relax. Leo the supermutant was standing off to the side, allowing them to rejoice in relative peace. Even so, Sarah gave him a nod, "hello Leo. it's good to see you again."

The supermutant bowed like a gentleman, "And you, Miss Lyons. I am pleased to see you in good health."

Sarah laughed, "I don't know about _that,_ but I'm alive."

"More than many, I'm sure." the mutant responded smoothly.

A pregnant silence settled over the group.

"What are you guys doing here?" Sarah asked, "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but three days…"

"Gallows found evidence that you were alive. He tracked you here." Colvin explained. Gallows, who was leaning against a wall staring into the darkness as if looking for something, nodded at her. Colvin continued, "Your dad ordered us to retrieve you once you had returned from the Pitt. We knew you were with the Lone Wanderer."

"Where is that prick, anyway?" Dusk demanded.

"Watching, no doubt. I'm sure if he wished to join in this little exchange, he would have done so already." Leo told them, his tone of voice indicating that this was the end of that particular line of questioning.

"So…" Dusk said, opening another one, "how was the Pitt?"

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but she didn't have one. Glade recognized the expression of someone who had far more on their minds than they could ever explain to another human being. One just had to have been there. He felt a surge of… possessiveness, like a father watching his daughter go out on her first date. He had served with her since she was a little child, and this was the first time she'd gone somewhere he couldn't follow.

"I feel like it's been two years…" Sarah said.

"Let's get you back to the citadel." Kodiak said, "You can get cleaned up. You'll feel better once you're into a nice clean suit of power armour."

"That sounds nice."

A polite cough alerted them all to the second man. He was dressed in leather armour, and sitting on the cart, looking bored.

"Ah," said Sarah, "yes, this is Phantom. Don't shoot him, he helped me out. And if all goes well, he'll be a doctor at the citadel."

"Good!" said Colvin fervently, "we need one. I've had enough of that tin can."

"We'll wait for you outside." Glade told her.

"I shall do the same." The Supermutant said.

"Me too." Phantom hurried after the mutant, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Sarah stood in complete silence, waiting for some time.

The Wanderer appeared at her shoulder, materializing like some sort of guardian angel.

"I wanted to thank you again, for rescuing me…more than once." she told him.

"_You're _thanking _me…_" he responded quietly, seeing humor where she couldn't.

She smiled, "You have something on your mind?"

"Sarah…I've never…You're the…I mean…" he died away into silence.

"Take your time, Jason." she said.

"It's just hard to… put it to words."

She grabbed his hand and squeezed, reassuring him, "No one here is trying to kill you."

"I've been in the wasteland for three and a half years and I've never…I'm so used to keeping things bottled up… stuffing them away in dark corners so I can finish getting the job done. No one's ever tried to-" he swallowed and tried again, "All I ever talk to people about is favors. They have a problem and they need it fixed. In return I usually get caps or ammo or something, but no one's ever taken a personal interest in-"

Sarah held a finger to his lips. She already knew where he was trying to get to. She stepped closer so that they were standing face to face. He was watching her with a combination of nervousness and anticipation. He reached up and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, cupping one of her cheeks in his palm. They drew closer, both savoring the moment, and both wondering when the other was going to put a stop to it.

Their lips brushed together, and…

"Sarah, we have to-oh…shit."

Sarah turned away from Jason and glanced at the door. Glade was standing there, trying to pretend he wasn't. She turned away from both men, wishing the floor would swallow her.

Glade and the Lone Wanderer exchanged a complicated look. The soldier finally nodded at him and withdrew, leaving Sarah and Jason alone in the tunnel.

Sarah cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck. Jason was standing still as a statue, deep in thought.

"I'm going back to the citadel." Sarah told him, a little louder than normal, as if she were trying to drown out some inner voice, "I want to get my hair cleaned up. Have a proper bath and get into a change of clothes."

"Say hi to your father." the Wanderer told her.

"Come with us." Sarah requested.

"I can't. Not immediately, anyway." he was still staring at the ground, frozen to the spot, "I've been out of the wastes for three weeks. I need to check up on a few places first. Clear the supermutants out again…"

"You can't do that after a rest at the citadel?"

"They may have prisoners with them." the Wanderer said.

She nodded understandingly. "I'll see you there, then."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll see you." he answered, still not meeting her eye. She walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

* * *

**To all those who re-read my previous chapter, thank you. I appreciate the thoughts and it did seem to be a vast improvement. As always, you spot any errors, or see any problems, let me know.**


	23. Chapter 23

Jason Howlett watched the small troop of brotherhood soldiers wind their way across the wasteland. The time was one o'clock, just after midday, and the sun was beating down upon the small party. In the distance, the heat rising off the golden desert had created a mirage, giving the impression that the entire wasteland was flooded with fresh blue water.

The previous few minutes replayed itself again and again across his inner eyes. He could still feel the brush of her lips on his own. Thoughts and images were whirling through his mind at high speed. Those precious moments when he and Sarah were about to kiss had unlocked an entire universe of possible futures. Whenever Jason had looked at his own future, whether he'd succeeded or not, all he saw was death.

_When she'd asked him his name that night in the tunnel…_

Noone had asked him that question since before he'd left the vault. And at that moment, a part of him had felt exhilarated. If he did die, someone somewhere would remember that he'd _lived_. That he'd been _more_ than a symbol. _More_ than a poster on the wall…

Someone would remember that a kid named Jason had crawled out of the vault and done his best…

And that was just after she'd asked him his name.

_Now she'd almost kissed him…_

His mind was alight with possibilities. What if they had actually kissed? What if that had led to more? As it always did when considering future implications, Jason's mind jumped thirty years down the road; he was sitting in his house in megaton with a child on his knee, and he was saying 'I am alpha and Omega…' he hadn't considered that kind of future as a possibility. Not since…not since before his father had died.

What if he could be more than the Lone Wanderer? What if, after all this time, karma was finally acting in his favor?

"You have a strange look upon your face."

Jason glanced to the side. Leo was standing stock still, as if waiting for the world to present him with a reason to move.

"Do I?"

"Indeed you do, my friend." the mutant smiled slightly, "You look almost… happy."

For some reason, that statement made the entire dream collapse. The world wasn't that nice a place. That sort of future was not for him. His life wasnot defined by love and life, but by death. His mother had died giving birth to him. His father had died, trying to save his life. Jason killed, and would die doing it. The bubble burst, and he was suddenly the Lone Wanderer, fixing the wasteland one Supermutant at a time. He scoffed, "That'll be the day."

"Well…I am pleased that you are well, at least." the mutant said.

"And you." the Wanderer returned the sentiment, "especially considering you were with the Lyons' pride. Those guys aren't very carefully what they shot at, but they _are _pretty good shots."

"I would like to believe that I showed them the value of thinking before one shoots." Leo told him, "I tricked them and talked with them until they saw my value as a living creature. In their eyes, I gained worth."

"Worth?"

"I discussed the supermutant war, and how they could improve their tactics to elicit a positive outcome. In return they did not shoot me, and allowed me to await your return."

"I appreciate that, by the way. You said you discussed tactics? Sun Tzu?"

"Indeed. Have you read the book?"

"No, but you told me about it after the enclave killed my father." Jason shrugged, "You taught me a valuable lesson: the way to kill a hydra isn't to keep chopping the heads off, it's to shoot it in the heart."

"An excellent quote." the mutant congratulated, "and particularly applicable to the supermutant problem. Do you mind if I use it in any future lessons?"

"Be my guest."

They lapsed into silence.

"So did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish?" the mutant asked.

"Ashur refused to cooperate. The Pitt is gone."

"Regrettable. And yet we may lament his death, and the loss of human lives. Then move on and look to the future of this wasteland."

"Yeah…" the Wanderer stared wistfully at the rapidly shrinking brotherhood party, "The future…"

* * *

The Pride discovered very quickly over the 48 hour trip home that Sarah was not interested in talking about her experiences in the Pitt. She spent most of her time walking in silence, answering only in single syllables. This only made the Lyons' Pride more curious about exactly what she'd seen and done in her time away from the Brotherhood.

Glade had kept his mouth shut about what he'd seen in the tunnel, waiting for an opportunity to ask her. It came one cold early morning. He happened to be on watch, and Sarah had risen from her blanket and sat on a rock a small distance away, watching the sun light the sky up in a kaleidoscope of colours.

"So…" he said, taking a seat beside her, "Is that honey in your hair."

"Don't ask."

"It's just that it smells sweet…"

"I don't care."

"Anyway, you never used to watch the sunrise. I remember when you were a squire, I used to try and get you to sit and watch. But you never would."

"I suppose I never appreciated it before now. There was no sunset or sunrise in the Pitt," She said, "Just darkness or smog."

"Sounds like it didn't change much since I was last there."

"Do you remember the scourge?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel bad for what happened to that place?"

"If I didn't, I would have joined the outcasts." Glade shot her a sidelong look, "Sarah, don't turn into another Lone Wanderer. One surly stoic closed-off stranger is enough."

"I'm not…" she denied, "When I get home I'm going to have a long talk with my father. Right now I'm just trying to unwind."

"And was _he_ helping you unwind?"

It took the girl a moment to change gears, "Don't."

"I warned you before, Sarah; he's going to come to a bad end."

"Only if he keeps doing what he's doing the way he's doing it." she replied.

"So what, are you saving him, then?"

"_If _it goes anywhere… then I'm just giving him another option. And this conversation is between you and I."

"Agreed. Sarah, I know your father has wanted you to find someone for a long time…but I'm not sure he'd approve of the Lone Wanderer."

"I don't think he knows the Lone Wanderer."

"Right…" Glade nodded, "because he's only been working with him for three years. But you get caught out in the Pitt with him for three weeks and you figure you know him better…"

"Does my dad know his_ name_?" Sarah replied.

Glade chuckled, "you know, it never actually occurred to me that he'd have one. He's just…"

"The Lone Wanderer," Sarah nodded, "I know that. So does he."

* * *

Anger is a driving force. Even a small amount, when channeled properly, can be one of the most productive things a human being can experience. It can be bottled up and then let out in a thin hot concentrated stream which decimates anything it's directed at.

At the current moment, all of the Lone Wanderer's displeasure was being directed at the super mutant he was stabbing in the stomach. He ducked under it's clumsily swung hammer and grabbed it's shoulder, leaping into the air and slipping his knife into it's throat. Behind him, he could hear a minigun slowly winding up. As he dropped and rolled, he sliced the mutant's hamstrings, making it drop to one knee just as the mingun began to spray death. The Wanderer, his escape covered by the mutant he'd just disabled, dashed behind a rickety shack, listening to the supermutant master turn his ally into swiss cheese.

The pleas of the prisoners could be heard from within the shack. One woman and a man. The head of a super sledge slammed through the wall beside the Wanderer. An overlord peered out the hole and got two shotgun rounds to the face. It howled in pain, giving the Wanderer some time which he put to good use by tossing a frag grenade around the corner at the minigun toting master, blowing its weapon and legs to shreds. Behind it, another mutant was pulling a frag grenade from its belt. The Wanderer drew a .32 pistol as the mutant wound up, and shot the grenade, blowing the mutant's arm off.

Despite its condition, the mutant picked up a sledge and began to run at him, blood spraying from the few meaty strands which were all that was left of its arm. The hole in the wall was widened as the overlord decided not to use the door.

Realizing his cover was blown, the Wanderer ran toward the one-armed assailant, kicking up a dropped assault rifle, grabbing it in midair and opening up on the mutant, blowing it's head off. Behind him, the overlord was screaming in rage, blood pouring down it's face. It opened up on him with a Chinese assault rifle, hitting him in the leg as he dove over a small boulder and landed on the ground below.

The Wanderer pulled himself up against the cliff, pulling off his own Xuanlong assault rifle. He worked fast, pulling out a stimpack and jamming it into his leg. Then he stood and returned fire, hitting the overlord squarely in the face, blinding it. As it reeled backwards flailing, a neat row of bullets sliced it's hand off, sending the Chinese assault rifle flying away. He shot it's knees out with small efficient bursts and watched it collapse on the ground. The monster was far from dead, but harmed enough that it was not a threat anymore.

The Lone Wanderer stepped around the side of the boulder, limping slightly. He marched up to the struggling monster and unloaded all of his rounds into it's face. The overlords were extremely tough, and the trick to killing them lay not in the amount of incoming fire, but in the placement. Blind it, disarm it, cripple it, then kill it, which is what the Wanderer did.

He stood among the carnage of his latest fight and waited a moment, letting his nerves calm. A muffled cry led him to the trapped prisoners. A wife and husband, middle-aged.

The man and woman had been hogtied, both facing the wall.

"Are either of you hurt?" the Wanderer asked.

"No," said the man, "just get us out of here. Cut me loose."

Instead, Jason bent down and cut the woman's bonds first. She was weak, battered, bruised, and malnourished. He helped her to her feet.

"Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!" she kept repeating the word, "Hang on, I think I might have some supplied they didn't take," she dug around in her pockets, pulling out a dozen caps.

"Oh for fuck's sake…" Jason shook his head, "why do you people always insist on…look, you just get out of here. Scav some weapons off the dead muties and go."

"Thank you!" the woman said with mad gratitude.

Jason crouched and untied the man, "Where are you from? How did this happen?"

"We were going to visit my niece in rivet city." the woman explained. "We come from Megaton. I've seen you walking around the place, by the way. Do you live in that big house all by yourself?"

Jason shook his head, "there's a dog in there, too."

Them man rose and dusted himself off, sizing up the Lone Wanderer. He said, "You're a lot shorter than I expected."

Obviously for him, gratefulness and humility were things that happened to other people.

The woman made a disapproving tch noise. "Roger," she said, "aren't you even going to thank him?"

"Why?" the man asked, "He's the Lone Wanderer. This is what he is! It's what he _does_! It's his _job_. You don't thank people for doing what they're supposed to."

Jason had had enough. "Have you ever seen a yao guai up close?"

"No." said the man.

"Do you want to?"

The man took a step back, "No."

"Then shut up." Jason snapped. He stepped out the hole the overlord had made. The sun was just setting. If he started out now, he could make it to the citadel by morning…

Or he could go down to little lamplight and check on the supermutant activity. They were bound to have reoccupied vault 87 again…

To go south, or east?

In the shack behind him, the husband and wife were caught up in a loud argument.

South? Or east?

Jason checked his pip-boy. Vault 87 aside, this was the last of the western camps…

The supermutants could wait for a few days…

He turned and headed east, dodging around the barbed wire and steel girder barricade around the supermutant's camp. After five minutes of walking, he drew to a halt once again, seeing in his inner eye, his father's face staring at him accusingly.

_She didn't actually kiss you… _an inner voice intoned, _You two just came really close. Sarah Lyons can wait. Those Supermutants have had three weeks to dig in nice and tight. You clear'em out now…you'll probably get double the casualties. They'll have to regroup and retake the vault before they can start turning people. Are you really willing to sacrifice possible hostages just for some woman who hasn't actually even kissed you yet?_

The Lone Wanderer sighed and turned southward, flicking on his radio to hear the story of Butcher Pete.


	24. Chapter 24

Modus Operandi 24

The little lamplight caverns…

As a rule, the Lone Wanderer hated caverns. The cramped, claustrophobic space and ancient air reminded him too much of the vault. Battle wounds aside, a large number of the worst experiences of his life had happened underground. For starters, there was the moment he had been kicked out of the vault. The darkness, claustrophobia, and utter lifeless desolation were horrible.

He hated caverns, but Little Lamplight was the exception. A rare story of success, the Little Lamplight spelunking caverns were populated entirely by children under the age of sixteen; descendents of a field trip gone awry. The caverns were filled with light, laughter, and general good humor, far more than any of the topside settlements. It was truly a peaceful place.

Of course, on had to take the bad with the good, and in this case, the best came with the very worst of all the subterranean locales; the abandoned vaults which dotted the capital wasteland. Dark, shadowy, decrepit pits, each of which told a horrifying story about humanity; it's arrogance, and it's flaws. Every time Jason stepped into one, he would see the bodies of his father, or Amata, or some other member of vault 101. Once he had actually seen them walking around, due to a hallucinogenic drug which had been pumped through the air filtration system. The vaults showed him what very easily could have been. Deep down inside, they terrified him far more than any gunfight. They scared him far more than the enclave ever had. Vault 87, hidden in the deep caves behind Little Lamplight, was the worst of these as it housed the bane of the capital wasteland: the Supermutants. It was the Lion's den, as it were.

Ever since he'd discovered that it was their headquarters, Jason visited vault 87 once every month like clockwork. Step by step, the smell of blood, gore, and ichor filling his nostrils, he'd walk into the darkness and clear it room by room. the main foyer, the vault entrance, the FEV testing chambers, he'd wander it all again and again and again, keeping the pressure on them in the hopes they'd decide to abandon it entirely. Yet they didn't. It housed the one thing they desperately needed: The FEV virus which changed their prisoners into soldiers.

He hated and feared those trips. Being underground in the dark with half the supermutant horde hunting him was not something he was ever completely prepared for, yet he did it anyway.

Now he was going to do it again. But that meant passing through Little Lamplight. First step to complete that was getting past the front gate, constructed out of an old billboard. Thankfully, it was guarded by an almost friendly acquaintance; a twelve year old boy, carrying an assault rifle nearly as long as the boy was tall. He wore a spelunking helmet and a chip on his shoulder.

"Hey mungo, it's been a long time." the child said. He was dressed in old pre-war mining gear which was far too large for him. "I was beginning to think you'd got your fucking head blown off."

"Not yet, Macready." Jason told him as the gate lifted into the air.

"Well keep trying, Mungo," Macready said encouragingly, "don't get discouraged."

"Will do," Jason shrugged off the mild jab, "you still the mayor?"

"For fuckin' life. I told you."

Jason nodded, surveying the large chamber. A large wooden building had been constructed off to the side, and the Wanderer knew from previous experience that it housed beds and a classroom.

"So…" Macready said, pulling a lever and jumping down from his perch. Behind him, the gate slowly slid down. Another child carrying a laser rifle took up his post. "Murder pass, eh?"

"Yep. Have you seen or heard anything from the Supermutants back there?"

"Not a damned thing." Macready told him, "it's been all quiet."

"That's…strange."

Macready began walking further into the cave system. Jason followed, shouldering his assault rifle. "Yep. Maybe last time you came, you cleared'em out for good."

"I doubt it."

A young girl ran up to Jason and smiled at him. A small finger was crammed up her nose all the way to the second knuckle. She was adorned with bright twinkly blue pyjamas. She couldn't have been more than nine years old.

"Hello Bumble." the Wanderer greeted.

She didn't answer, concentrating solely on her gold digging.

"Are you going to eat those nuggets, or save them for later?" Jason asked.

"I can't eat them!" Bumble decided, upon close examination of her finger, "They're all too stringy. See? Look."

"I think I'll pass…" Jason muttered.

"Go away, Bumble." Macready ordered. The girl gave the boy a sullen look and disappeared.

Macready led him through the well-lit caverns, dodging running children and the fleet of pet dogs which populated the underground city. Eventually they came to a well guarded passage. Another gate had been constructed, this one much heavier, designed to withstand a lot more firepower than the gate to the outside world. It was a testament to the direction from which the real threats came from. A small signpost had been hammered into the floor of the cave. It read: Murder Pass. Several children stood on the rampart, looking bored. They also carried assault rifles.

Macready waved a hand and one of the kids pulled another lever, dropping the bags of rocks which served as counterweights, and lifting the gate.

"Good luck, mungo." The mayor said.

Jason shouldered his assault rifle and went where human beings couldn't go.

* * *

The double doors which stood between the citadel's courtyard and the rest of the world swung open. Sarah Lyons stepped through. The sound of gunfire greeted her. The firing ranges were full of recruits. Except that where it should have been a comforting sound, a reminder of home, it was instead a harsh reminder of the trog hordes.

As she wandered unsteadily through the courtyard, she did not feel as it she were returning home. She would never be fully able to put to words the trials she had endured both physically, and emotionally. She thought of the trog swarm, the rancid air. She thought of the hellish red sky, and the steelyard jungle. Her previous life in the wasteland seemed almost another age. In reality she'd been gone three weeks. At that moment, it felt like twenty years.

She realized why Jason had never really accepted the brotherhood rank which Sarah's father had bestowed upon him. It was not disrespect as the Lyons' Pride had assumed, it was simply the fact that the things he did, and the places he went set him apart from the other people trying to rebuild the wastes. The rank of Honorary Knight was a petty reward, certainly not enough to equal his contributions and sacrifices. It was nothing more than a condescending pat on the back performed by those who didn't know. And that was just it; both Jason and Sarah had been somewhere the rest of the Brotherhood hadn't. She realized that no matter how much time passed, things would never be quite the same. She would always feel slightly alienated by her comrades. It was not their fault; they simply hadn't been there.

She wished the Wanderer was there beside her at that moment. It would somehow have made things easier to deal with.

Paladin Gunny walked up and shook her warmly by the hand. "Sentinel! How are you? Welcome back!"

"Thank you." Sarah murmured. She glanced at the firing range, "how are the new recruits coming along?"

"They are doing extremely well, actually. A few of them came along with the knights, accompanied me and rescued the Pride from the Library." Gunny smiled. Then a thought struck him, "Come with me!" He led her down the firing line until they reached a new recruit. The man had brown hair, and a thin, gangly frame. He could not have been over the age of twenty-five.

"This," Said Gunny as the recruit kept firing, "is Knight Taylor."

"He isn't wearing power armour yet." Sarah commented. The recruit was still dressed in the standard Initiate gear: recon armour. He was also armed with a 10mm pistol instead of an assault rifle.

"He was just awarded the rank for singlehandedly taking down an overlord and three other supermutants. When we rescued the Pride. " Gunny said.

Sarah nodded. The recruit was still acting as if they weren't there, concentrating solely on hitting his targets. Sarah felt that he was trying to show off.

"Recruit!" She barked.

He holstered his pistol, turned, and saluted, "Ma'am."

"How did you kill an overlord?" Sarah asked.

"He was part of a rear guard we had left behind at the entrance while we ventured into the library," Gunny said helpfully, adding some background, "The rest of them retreated."

"I ran to the upstairs landing and retrieved a Fatman from a fallen knight-sergeant." the recruit said proudly, "Then I shot the mutants with it."

"How old are you?" Sarah asked.

"I'm twenty-three, Ma'am." the spindly recruit said.

"That's…" The Lone Wanderer was technically only twenty-two, but he looked and often acted nearly a decade older than the recruit. Sarah glanced down at the man's chest. A gleaming new dogtag was hanging from his neck. "Why did you join the brotherhood?"

"I heard Three-dog on the radio talking about the Lone Wanderer." the Knight said enthusiastically, "I wanted to join up just like he did and give the supermutants the one-two punch!"

"Did you know you carry the same rank he does?" Sarah asked.

The knight's face showed a mixture of pride and confusion. "That doesn't seem right," he said.

Sarah turned back to Gunny. The Pride was waiting for her by the entrance to the citadel's A-Ring. Phantom was with them, looking like a fish completely out of water. Somewhere within her, something was reaching the end of it's rope. Sarah said, "I want to get cleaned up. I want to get changed, I want to sleep, and I want to see my father. Carry on Gunny, Taylor."

* * *

Elder Owyn Lyons sat at his computer, typing yet another report. He wasn't entirely sure why he kept sending the damned things back east; they never replied and he suspected his own name had been struck from their records. Just for caring… just for trying to save more than the technology…

The door to his quarters opened and his daughter stepped through. She was dressed in ragged combat armour. Her blond hair seemed to have solidified into a dark, rumpled, lopsided morass. Her face was dirty and weather-beaten. Her eyes were distant and not quite as readable as they always had been before. He knew instantly that the Pitt had changed her on a level much deeper than the superficial.

He stood, feeling every joint in his body creak.

Owyn embraced his daughter, pulling her into a tight, comforting hug. It was something he realized had not done since she had reached the rank of sentinel. He had always done his best to treat her as a grown woman, but sometimes a father needed to embrace his daughter, especially after the constant fear, the knot which had occupied his gut for three weeks.

He felt her arms tighten around him. Her face was buried hi his shoulder. After a moment her body shuddered and he heard a quiet sob.

* * *

**Alright, so I'm sorry for the comparatively long wait. For some reason this chapter was very difficult to write. I wanted to show both character's reactions to coming home, and getting back into the swing of thigns. Sarah's was especially difficult and I'm still not entirely sure I captured it fully.**

**The book is not over. Tere is more to come. I just figured the characters needed to catch their breath.**

**And as for vault 87…I'm hoping it'll be a set-up for the sequel. And an excuse for the Lone Wanderer to get his ass back to the Citadel on the double.**


	25. Chapter 25

Modus Operandi 25

Sarah awoke in a cold sweat. She stared at the ceiling of her father's quarters, trying to suppress the feeling that the trog horde was trying to get in the door. The lumpy couch underneath her was forcing her back to twist into an uncomfortable position. She blinked blearily and sat up, rubbing the back of her neck. Her father had sat down in a chair nearby with a book, reading by the light of a small lamp. He had dozed off with the book lying haphazardly in his lap.

Sarah rose and walked over to a wash basin which was filled with fresh aqua pura daily by an initiate. A clean glass was sitting on the counter. She dipped it into the fresh, clean water and took a long drink. Then she splashed some on the back of her neck and stared into the mirror. Her face was not as she remembered it. It was gaunt, pale, and slightly deadened. All the cuts and bruises sustained during her three-week nightmare were only just beginning to heal, leaving her face discolored and swollen in places. She was not going to come away from it without a few scars. The wound in her shoulder ached madly.

Her father stirred, awakened by the noise. "Sarah? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She said abruptly, "I just…" she turned and sat back down on the couch, staring into the lamp, "I never thought I'd encounter a place where the people were worse off than in the capital wasteland."

"They do exist." Lyons replied, folding up his book and setting it down on a side table, "And the Pitt is certainly a prime example."

"_Was_." Sarah muttered.

"Were you the one who did it?"

"No it was the Lone Wanderer," Sarah replied, "It was his plan. He pushed the button."

"If it was the Lone Wanderer who did it, then I suspect it would have happened whether you were there or not, and whether you had tried to stop him or not." Her father said, trying to comfort her with what they both knew. The attempt was somewhat successful.

"He said it would save the capital wasteland."

"He _said_ that?" her father asked thoughtfully.

Sarah nodded.

"Then I believe him," Owyn told her, "Despite everything, he knows more, has been further, and thought much deeper on all the issues we've tried to deal with. I truly regret the fact he is unwilling to work with us more closely. I've often wondered why that is. I suppose he is arrogant."

"No," Sarah shook her head, "He's practical. We're good, but the stuff he does, and the places he goes…we cannot keep up, and any soldier that tried would get killed doing it. I'm good with a weapon. I can handle myself, and I've been fighting the supermutants for twenty years-"

"You are the best, Sarah." her father said proudly, "that is why you're a Sentinel."

"Dad, in the Pitt I was a liability. I could barely keep myself alive as it was, never mind contributing towards any sort of objective."

"You were ill-equipped," Lyons argued, "You did not have power armour or any heavy weaponry."

"Dad, I would have needed an army! The Lyons' Pride in full gear with all our ammo would have had a hard time! Those trog hordes were fucking relentless! But I bet if you stripped Jason naked and handed him a switchblade he could make it through. We cannot operate the way he operates. We can only move in after he's finished and make sure that the changes he makes are permanent."

Her father was frowning, "Jason?"

Sarah deflated, "It's his name."

Owyn Lyons rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I did not know that."

"Did you ever ask him?"

"No." Lyons admitted. ,"but I'm surprised to find out that _you_ did."

Sarah stared at the floor. She could feel her father's gaze lingering on her. He said, "Is there anything you wish to tell me, Sarah?"

"No," she said.

"And what of the Wanderer's companion, Leo?" her father asked, "Glade gave me a report. What do you make of him?"

"I think he's a lot smarter than either of us." Sarah admitted, "But the thought that a mutie might be smart scares me."

"It shouldn't," her father said, "long before your time, the brotherhood encountered a race of smart supermutants in a place called Mariposa."

"I know about that…" said Sarah, "But at least you could talk to them. Imagine the mutants here with all of their strength, determination, and hostility. If they were smart too, we probably wouldn't survive."

"I think you are right about that, Sarah." Her father said honestly.

Sarah nodded. Silence fell over them. Eventually Sarah looked up at him, "What about Ishmael Ashur?"

"What about him?"

"How long did you know he was still alive?"

"Three years," her father said, "the Wanderer told me of his first trip to the Pitt. It brought back many bad memories. What we did there, Sarah, was wrong."

"Yeah, about that," she said, "You only changed your mind about saving people _after _the scourge. Not before."

Lyons sighed, "Do you remember the night we corralled those civilians and slaughtered them?"

"I do."

"I would not have bothered me but for one thing: Sentinel Ashur's reaction." Lyons told her, "He asked if it was necessary. Considering the fact that our rewards turned out to be nothing more than a few more soldiers, some supplies, Kodiak, and Three-Dog, I would say it was not."

Sarah stared, "Three-Dog came from the Pitt?"

Her father snorted, "He started somewhere, and that somewhere was the Pitt. Where do you think he learned about 'the good fight'?"

"I just…" Sarah shrugged, "He just always has been."

"I know what you mean." her father agreed, "people like that aren't born, but made."

"So Three-Dog aside the scourge was the wrong move." Sarah prompted.

"In hindsight, events tend to be much clearer than they are when one is in the thick of them." Lyons told her thoughtfully, "I was plagued by guilt after the scourge. Believe me, it did not happen overnight. Ashur's reaction made me curious at first. Then I slowly grew to understand his position, and or mistake. We were in the capital wasteland for several years before I finally decided to…expand the scope our objectives. Long story short, we are here now in this position, outgunned, undermanned, and fighting a losing battle because of what we did to the Pitt. Because of what _I_ did to the Pitt. It is my Penance, Sarah," He sighed, "it was no easy thing to admit to myself that I deserve it."

"But… It's _your _penance." Sarah pointed out, "not the Brotherhood's. All of your soldiers still fight under your name."

"Not all of them." Lyons pointed out. "Do you remember when the Outcasts first split?"

Sarah nodded. She had been a young teenager then, not fully aware of the deep rift the brotherhood was undergoing. As she ran the memories of the Scourge through her mind, watched the people crawling over eachother as the explosives rained down, Sarah felt a surge of anger towards the Outcasts replace the typical yearning for a whole and untarnished brotherhood. They actually wished to continue to operate with complete detachment from any sort of humanitarian efforts...

"In a way, we are the outcasts." her father said, sighing, "They are the true face of the Brotherhood of Steel and ever since the scourge, I have never been able to bring myself to like it."

* * *

The hairs on the back of Jason's neck were standing up on end as he stared at the message written on the wall. He had rapidly discovered that the only thing worse than a vault full of supermutants was a vault completely devoid of them. The tunnels of Murder Pass had been completely empty. Even the bodies from Jason's previous visits had been removed. And the vault itself had been stripped of all supplies. Anything that might have been remotely useful including all the computers and data storage, all the tables and chairs, all the lockers, everything right down to the last spoon, was completely gone. No furniture, no bodies in the FEV testing chambers, and no lights. Even the lightbulbs had been removed. If it weren't for the map on his pipboy, Jason would have been completely lost in the darkness. Then he'd entered the central room; the hub, from which all the different corridors branched away.

And written in blood, just below the window in the overseer's office, in giant, scrawling letters were the words:

**Brutus Says Unity!**

The hairs on the back of his neck rose even further. Something else was in the vault with him. Jason turned, putting his back to the wall, heart pounding. He peered into the darkness beyond his little pool of light. There…in the empty darkness…a darker shadow…almost invisible. Almost. Jason stared at it, trying to make out its shape. He blinked and peered even harder, assault rifle at the ready, but somehow the empty darkness was a little emptier still.

* * *

**Alright so setup for the sequel... **

**and it may have been a stretch to have Three-Dog come from the pitt, but it's not much of one, seeing as how he says in game that his childhood was absolutely miserable and that he saw a lot of "fucked up" stuff. Go and visit him in-game to find the actual quote.**


	26. Chapter 26

Modus Operandi 26

Elder Lyons found his friend in a small room attached to a corridor just off the citadel labs. The Scribe was bent over a workbench, fiddling with a piece of pre-war gadgetry. As Lyons entered and shut the door behind him, the scribe held up a finger. Without taking his eyes off his work, he silently instructed Owyn to wait a little while.

Rothchild flipped the part over carefully and dismantled a plastic appendage sticking out the top. He swapped a small part inside for one which was lying on a white cloth at the end of the workbench, and then he reassembled the entire business and set it aside. "Yes?"

"What is that?" Owyns asked curiously.

"Optics for Liberty Prime," Rothchild said happily, "I think he'll be back to working order in the next three months."

"Good news." Lyons intoned.

"How is Sarah?"

"She is recovering." Owyn told him carefully, "The Pitt changed her, Reginald. I'm not sure how yet." He looked at the floor with an expression of helplessness, "She is being very hard on herself."

"Well being caught up in something like that cannot be good for the ego." Rothchild observed, "Our only Sentinel being caught by the supermutants… Not our finest moment, Owyn."

"Noone blames her for that."

"_She_ does, obviously." Rothchild pulled a jumble of electrical wire off a low shelf and began to untangle it carefully, "To be honest, considering just how many times we've engaged the supermutants in battle, I'm surprised it hasn't happened more often."

"She called herself a liability." Owyn told him.

"Well she was working alongside the man who beat the Enclave. Any soldier would be critical of their own accomplishments, given that fact."

"_We_ beat the enclave." Lyons defended.

"No, we engaged them in battle." Rothchild responded evenly, "_He_ took down the Landcrawler, _he_ took down Raven Rock, and Liberty Prime took the Purifier. Our three biggest battles were won by someone else."

"I am not going to let him take credit for every accomplishment in the past three years!" Lyons said angrily.

Rothchild ignored him, "He isn't the first, either. It's the same thing that happened in 2161 in southern California, and again in 2241 on the west coast. Again in the Midwest, as part of the Brotherhood itself. Even now we're hearing rumors of a Courier in New Vegas…These 'supermen' seem to pop up from time to time, solving the local population's problems. I think we should be thankful that we have one here in D.C."

"Did you know he had a name?" Lyons asked.

"He must have," Rothchild reasoned, laying out the untangled wires across the bench, "Most people do. But I never bothered to ask what it was. I assumed he would be dead before it became relevant."

"It's Jason."

"And from whom did you hear that?"

"My daughter."

_That _gave Rothchild pause. He looked up from his work, "And do you approve of _that _development? I can't say I didn't see it coming."

"I don't know what to think of it." Lyons told him honestly, "I've always hoped she would find someone. But I always assumed it would be one of her squadmates. Vargas, perhaps."

"Well the Wanderer _is _part of the squad." Rothcild said fairly.

"He doesn't act like it," Owyn responded, "he-"

The door opened and the Lone Wanderer stepped through. His hair was dirty and knotted, his face covered in dust and grime; the perfect picture of a disheveled traveler. His features were completely blank as he spoke to Rothchild. If he had heard their conversation, he didn't show it at all, "I need the Password for your computer system."

"Jason," Lyons said.

The Wanderer fixed him with the sort of look with which a person would regard a penguin reciting the Gettysburg Address. Then his face resumed it's stone blankness, "Yes?" he asked.

"I wanted to thank you for rescuing my daughter. We are once again in your debt."

"So give me the passcode."

"Why?" Rothchild asked. The two of them had never really seen things eye to eye.

"Vault 87 is empty. What do you know about Brutus?"

Rothchild dropped what he was doing, "What do you mean empty?"

"What does Empty mean?" the Wanderer replied, "It's been stripped of everything. Even the furniture. The food supplies, the medical supplies, the FEV virus, it's all gone. And there's a note on the wall saying 'Brutus says Unity'. I need to know about Brutus."

Rothchild exchanged a worried look with Lyons, "No, you need to know all about Unity, and you won't find it in the pre-war archives. I'll compile a report on the Mariposa incident and have it for you in twelve hours."

"Mariposa, you said?" the Wanderer asked carefully.

"Yes." Rothchild replied.

"Get your report done," the Wanderer ordered, "I have a friend who can tell me about it first hand, too."

"Is he a supermutant?" Lyons asked, caught off-guard.

"No, he's a tree." the Wanderer told them, still keeping his expression blank.

"No need to be sarcastic." Rothchild responded airily.

"Eight A.M. tomorrow." The Wanderer said, "The report."

"By the way, Jason," Lyons said before the Wanderer could disappear, "My daughter told me she felt as though she were a liability when she was traveling with you."

The Wanderer's expression changed alarmingly. He was suddenly an awkward young man, "No," he said honestly, "She's an exemplary soldier, and a credit to the Brotherhood of Steel. And she did much better than I expected her to."

"What do you mean?" Lyons asked.

The Wanderer's wall went right back up. He said, "She survived it. I don't think anyone else would have."

"She's at Project Purity." Lyons said, "If you'd say that to her in person I'd appreciate it."

* * *

Sarah tilted her head back until her hair was submerged in the steaming bucket of Aqua Pura.

"This'll do horrible things to your scalp," the Barber told her, pouring a small amount of Abraxo into the liquid and stirring it. He reached into the hot water and began to work her hair with his hands, breaking it up into smaller strands and letting the hot water soften the hardened wiry mass it had become "I have no idea what you put in it, but when my favorite customer calls me all the way from Rivet City…"

"Which you can thank me for later, by the way," Colvin told her.

Sarah shut her eyes and tried to relax as the man slowly stirred the pot. She could feel her hair being pulled apart, returning to its natural shape. When she wore it long, which was extremely rare, it fell well past her shoulders. But Sarah usually tied it up at the back of her head. Long hair got caught in things. It could be grabbed; it could block her view, and all in all, was detrimental to her performance on the battlefield. As the solidified honey dissolved in the hot water, a sweet smell filled the room.

"I saw a snake on the back of your jacket," she said.

"It's a tunnel snake!" the barber said enthusiastically, "Tunnel Snakes Rule!"

"What are the Tunnel Snakes?" Sarah asked, breathing in the steam. It was refreshing, in a way. Therapeutic, even, it felt as though she were reaching a deep cleanliness which extended far beyond the outward grime.

"Only the biggest, baddest gang in the capital wasteland." the barber told her, "We'll rule this place! We kick ass! You should wear your hair long, by the way, not tied back. Not only does it look better, it also lets the pores in your forehead breath, reducin' zits and other undesirables."

"How come we haven't heard of any other members?" Colvin asked.

"Because the others are still in the vault." the barber told them defiantly, "but we're workin' on it, okay?"

Sarah's eyes snapped open, "what Vault?"

"101. I come from there. Escaped when Jason, sorry, the Lone Wanderer, came back."

"Really?" Sarah tried to twist around to get a better look, but the Barber held her in place, "can you tell me about his childhood?"

"No." the Barber shook his head, "I ain't sayin' shit. If he ain't told you, he doesn't want you to know. I ain't sayin' shit. I saw what he did to Wilkins."

"Wilkins?" Colvin asked.

"He was a vault security officer. He wasn't on my side," the barber told them, "But noone deserves to get hung from the wall by railroad spikes. Jason came back and crucified him. Wanted to make a point to the Overseer I guess. It worked too, he stepped down peacefully and let Amata take over."

"There's that name again." Sarah muttered, "Tell me about her."

"Oh," The Barber waved his hand, "She and Jason were real close. I dunno if they banged yet, but it was coming. She helped him get out the first time, and then booted him out herself the second time."

"That…probably hurt." Colvin observed.

"Yeah." the barber nodded, "judging by how he looks now, I'd say he just gave up and went feral."

"You never tried to comfort him?" Sarah demanded, "You two are both out here all alone, afterall."

"Weelll," the barber began awkwardly, "ya see, we don't really get along either. I was a bit of an ass to him and Amata when he was young, and I don't think he ever forgave me for that. But he saved my mom, so I guess we have a kinda truce. He don't talk to me, and I don't talk to him. Besides, he's never around."

Glade's voice echoed around the small room in the basement of Project Purity, "Speaking of the Lone Wanderer, Sarah, he's on the docks across the Aqua Pura pond."

* * *

Jason knelt at the edge of the low dock, staring out across the small pond of fresh, clean, pure water. He watched as the pipes poured gallons of new fresh water into the pond, throwing the entire area into a permanent mist. It was his favorite spot. The moment he'd woken up from his two-week coma after starting the purifier, he'd sat right at this spot and watched the clean fresh water flowing from the giant pipes. It was at it's most beautiful in the morning when the sun caught the water droplets in just the right way and turned the entire area into a kaleidoscope of colors.

He dipped his hand in the cool water and felt it flow around his fingers. Then he removed his bandana, laying it reverently on the dock beside him. He dipped both hands in the water and used it to wash his face, cleaning it for the first time in weeks.

_You should have shaved…_ said a niggling voice in his head.

_No, _said his father's voice, _you should be heading north to talk to Harold about Mariposa. Surely the supermutants are more important than one woman._

_It can wait for an hour, _the first voice responded.

_Can it? That hour could cost you in future…_

Jason stared across the water and sighed, torn between his duty to his father and the wasteland, and his own personal desires. Eventually he reached for his bandana, tied it onto his head, and made to rise.

Light feet tromped down the dock and Sarah Lyons took a seat beside him. Her bruises and cuts had almost finished healing. She had obviously washed and cleaned herself up. Instead of power armour, she was wearing a light outfit made of Brahmin skin. he could see that her shoulder was still bandaged up. Her hair was wet, and lying in long strands about her face. She looked beautiful.

"Here," she said, dropping an object into his open hand, "I want you to have this, by the way."

He stared down at it. The object was a dogtag:

_Name: Jason Howlett_

_Hair: Blonde_

_Eyes: blue_

"I had the quartermaster make it as soon as I got back." she explained.

His hand closed tightly around it, and kept tightly shut. "Thank you," he said, an expression of almost mad gratitude on his face.

She nodded. They sat together in comfortable silence, watching the flowing water.

"So… about what happened in the tunnel…?" she began.

The Wanderer's gaze shot up and met her own.

She said, "Do you want that to continue?"

"Yes." He said the word immediately and with a complementing amount of enthusiasm, but it all faded and he looked down at the water, "…and no."

"Why not?" she asked, "Is it about Amata?"

He sighed. "She was a girl back in the vault. Daughter of the overseer…"

"I know." Sarah said, "I talked to Butch. Is that why you refuse to settle down out here?" Sarah asked, "You said 'I don't belong up there', remember? Are you so determined to not lay down any roots because one day they might let you back in?"

"No." He admitted painfully, "It's because…My father died for this," he motioned out at the purifier. On the far bank, Sarah could make out the shapes of Glade and Colvin, watching them, "He devoted his last breath to seeing this through. And every time I'm not doing the same I'm…"

"You feel guilty." She finished for him, "Jason, you can't spend every second of your life working for your father's dream."

"I have so far… and anyway I never found someone I thought I could settle down _with_ until…" he swallowed the last word, but that was okay because Sarah didn't need to hear it. She leaned forward and kissed him. He froze up in the beginning, but once he got over the shock, he returned her enthusiasm in full, exploring her mouth with his tongue and allowing her to do the same. It was perfect; slow, intimate, sensual, and completely free of any outside disturbances. It last for forty-five seconds, but felt like as many minutes. The sound of flowing water serenaded them.

At last, Sarah pulled back. She wiped her lips on her sleeve and smiled at him. he looked completely different. Much younger, to begin with. The steel wall behind his feral blue eyes had disintegrated, as well as the cold aura he had kept up, leaving a handsome young man in it's place. More scarred than most, but with a renewed interest in life that she hadn't seen before. She leaned forward and carefully slipped off his red bandana. For the first time since his father had died, he felt like Jason Howlett instead of the Lone Wanderer.

"I'm going back to the citadel." She said, though there was an unspoken offer in the statement.

He laughed and looked back at the spray of water. A constant rainbow hung about the place. At that moment, to him, it looked like paradise. "I have to go back to Megaton. Rest. Repair. Recharge…"

"You can't do that at the citadel?" she asked.

"Well yes I could, but there's one important difference between the citadel and my house in megaton: you guys don't have a robotic butler."

"You know another difference between megaton and the citadel?" she asked, a slow smile spreading over her face, "there's no pretty blonde girl waiting for you there."

That prompted another laugh. The Wanderer shook his head and stared out at the water for a moment. His eyes returned to her face, "I'd really like to take this slow, Sarah, if that's alright with you. I want to…to savour it. I guess."

She nodded, "I can do that."

He leaned forward and kissed her again. Then she rose and began to make her way down the dock.

"Hey, Sarah," he called. She turned and he waved the dogtag, "…thanks."

She gave him another nod and went on her way. Colvin and Glade disappeared from the far bank, leaving him alone with his thoughts. The inner voice of guilt was screaming in anger at him, but the rest of him felt exhilarated.

After several minutes, another voice called to him from the shore. It said, "Hey, Wanderer."

The Lone Wanderer turned, expecting to see Sarah, or perhaps a member of the Lyons' pride. Instead Six raiders were lined up on the beach. Every single one of them had a Fatman zeroed on his position.

"Ashur sends his regards, asshole!" one of them said, pulling the trigger. The other five followed suit, bathing the docks in fire, blast, and radiation.

* * *

**And now the tables turn. It's Sarah's time to return the favour.**

**And don't worry about Jason's inner conflict; that'll get resolved too. Leo has one more part to play.**

**On a side note, who votes for a little novelette cross-over? The Chosen One vrs The Lone Wanderer? I'd love to see Jason Howlett get blindsided by a fifty-year old grizzled version of himself.**


	27. Chapter 27

Modus Operandi 27

The man breathed slowly, in through his nose, and out through his mouth. He cleared his mind, letting peace fill him. This was _his_ domain. He was king. Nothing could touch him here. He reached up and adjusted his headwrap and suglasses. Everything had to be perfect. Why? Style. Give it your all, and never ever hold back. That was his motto. He lived for it. For it, and for _this… _He leaned forward and licked his dry lips, readying himself for the moment…

In a sudden burst of motion, he pulled the microphone towards his mouth and began to speak in a voice the gods would envy:

"Weeeell helloooooo capital wasteland," he boomed, "I'm Tha-ree dog! Your howlin' host, here for your listen'n. An' we'ah broadcastin' live from the bee-utiful downtown D.C. ruins full'o nuthin' but rads, rubble, muties, an' Meee! Lord and master of the finest radio station around? Am I right?"

An' here's the news: unemployment is down, stocks are up, and the UN has just declared global peace forever…" he sighed, "Now the real news: Well it appears the Hydroponics farm in Rivet City is finally giving off some good stuff. The eggheads there say they'll be ready to start outdoor farming tests in two months. Imagine that, children: fresh, clean, rad-free food. It finally feels like we're close to winning the good fight, no?"

He pulled a slip of paper over and read it, "Apparently a behemoth was sighted near Rivet City. The brave men and women of Rivet City security raised the drawbridge, cutting off access from all the people trapped on the shore, and fired a few shots at it, but the thing is still alive and kicking. Keep it in mind if you plan on going down that way cos if it kicks _you_, you ain't getting' up again. Might want to stick it out at Project Purity until it all blows over…"

He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the desk as if about to give a heart to heart speech, "My friends, I'd like to talk to you about safety. Specifically when dealing the Enclave. Now I know it's been eight months since our messiah and his buddies in the brotherhood blew up that landcrawler, but that doesn't mean they aren't still a threat to us little folk. For the Love'o god, People! Their camps aren't hard to spot. If you're travelin', go around'em. Take the long route, enjoy the empty brown scenery. It's better than the alternative. Now, let's quiet down and listen to Cole Porter's _Anything Goes_…"

He sat back and flipped a switch, setting off a recording of the old pre-war tune and sat back in his chair. Smells from the kitchen told him that his meal was ready. He rose from his seat and walked out the door over to his stove, where a pot was boiling a package of pre-war noodles.

Scuffling and shouting echoed from the floors below. Three-Dog carefully turned the stove off. He pulled open a kitchen drawer full of cutlery, and ammunition. A 10mm pistol had been neatly fitted into it, covered by a set of forks. The D.J. loaded his weapon and crept down the stairs, pointing it at the only entrance, ready to shoot whatever came through. He was an amateur, he would be the first to admit, but one didn't wander around the world as much as he had without firing a few shots.

Someone, knowing Three-Dog's habits, knocked on the door, "Three-Dog? It's Dillon. We have a visitor for you. Says he wants to broadcast a message."

"Bring him in." Three-Dog ordered. The Brotherhood Knights obeyed, dragging a shifty little man with them. He had on an immediately recognizable raider outfit, and was clutching a letter tightly in his hands.

"M here ta see Three-Dog." the man told his captors, "I ain't here ta get shot up! I'm just the messenger."

"You're a raider. Give me a reason not to shoot you." The D.J. ordered.

The man held up the letter, along with a familiar object. Three-Dog wrenched both from his grasp and opened the paper. His eyes scanned down the paragraph of text. then he looked at the object: a red bandana, melted and burnt, but still recognizable. His expression turned to stone.

"What does it say?" Dillon asked.

The D.J. pointed his pistol at the raider's head and pulled the trigger. Then he looked up at Dillon, "Get back to your post. I got an announcement to make."

* * *

A plastic bottle melted as Sarah's laser hit it dead on. Firearms went off on either side as the trainees practiced their aim. For Sarah, it was a way to release some pent-up emotion.

"Nice shot!" Colvin said admiringly.

"Thank you." She took aim at another.

"Sooo…" the Knight-Captain began, "You and the Wanderer, huh?"

The beam missed by half an inch, grazing it's side. Sarah tried to act completely calm, "What of it?"

"Nothing at all." Colvin said, "I just wanted to see if I could make you miss."

"Ass."

Colvin grinned, "What was your first clue?"

Footsteps made them both turn. Sarah, out of a subconscious habit, kept her gun pointed downrange. Paladin Kodiak was approaching them with a worried expression on his face. "Three-Dog's on the radio!" he reported.

"That _does _happen." Colvin replied.

"Shut up!" Kodiak ordered. He turned back to Sarah, "You've gotta hear this!"

All activity in the courtyard had been suspended. The recruits, and Gunney himself, were crowded around the sparring pit, listening to the radio which had been placed on a chair in the center. Three-Dog's voice echoed through the tinny speakers, but it wasn't' his normal smooth tones. He sounded distressed and was speaking frankly and urgently, "…until some fuckhead in the citadel does something about it!"

There was a pause, "What's this about?" Sarah demanded, listening to the silence.

"The Wanderer got caught by raiders." An initiate said, white-faced. Sarah recognized him as Taylor, the knight who had earned his promotion rescuing the Pride.

The radio crackled to life, "Once again, this is a message received from a raider who broke right into my studio. It appears the Lone Wanderer has been captured by Raiders. The gang is lead by someone called Ishmael-"

Sarah felt a cold dread seep into the pit of her stomach.

"-Ashur. He wrote a letter directly to Elder Owyn Lyons: You remember me. You remember what you did. Justice calls. We're waiting at Evergreen Mills. Sounds stupid, I know. But he also gave me the Wanderer's Red Bandana so maybe he's not so full of shit. Lyons, I don't know what business you have with this fucking creep, but we need our messiah back, so I'm going to keep broadcasting this message until some fuckhead in the citadel does something about it!"

There was silence, and the message repeated.

Sarah sat back, her mind reeling. The only thought which was making it through the haze was: How?

The second was much more chilling. It was a list of all the different things the Raider King could do to Jason, and the thought that she probably wasn't able to imagine half of them.

Sarah burst through the door of the briefing room at high speed, the Pride at her heels. Her father and Rothchild were already seated at the table, just in front of the Brotherhood of Steel emblem.

"Sarah-" Her father began.

"You've heard the news, then?" She demanded, "When is the Pride leaving?"

"We are deliberating." Rothchild responded.

"_Deliberating_?" Sarah looked from her father to Rothchild, then back to her father, "Did Jason deliberate when you told him to take down the landcrawler? How about when he stepped into the Purifier?"

"When in command, every action should require some level of sober second thought to prevent recklessness." Elder Lyons told her gently, "I did not say we'd abandon him. But this is clearly a trap. How is it that Ishmael Ashur survived Jason's plan?"

"I can answer that." another voice said. The Pride turned to see Phantom pushing his way through the crowd at the door.

"Here's a question," Dusk muttered, "How do we know we can trust him?"

"Haven was a fortress." Phantom said, speaking directly to Sarah, "I doubt the Wanderer saw it all. There could have been six different escape tunnels or panic rooms. The fact is that the Trogs aren't a threat to someone that well dug in. Just so long as he didn't run out of ammo…"

"We need to rescue Jason." Sarah said, turning back to her father..

"I don't think we _should_ send anyone," Rothchild said, shifting papers on his desk, "This is obviously a trap, and the Wanderer has a tendency to solve these issues himself. Remember when he was caught by the enclave? He ended up single-handedly destroying Raven Rock. I'm sure that if we wait a few days he'll come bursting through the front gate with Ashur's head on a railroad spike."

"You are too cold, my friend!" Elder Lyons responded in a warning voice.

"And you aren't being cold enough." Rothchild argued, "He is undeniably able to take care of himself. He has made that abundantly clear, only cooperating with us because it suits him. I fail to see why we should put valued lives at risk when the problem will get solved regardless."

"He is a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel!" Sarah responded hotly.

"By whose measure?" Rothchild replied in an even tone, "He has never gone on patrol with a squad. He has never checked in for duty or regular checkups. He hasn't even been given a proper salary. He has frequently shown distinct discomfort with the idea. He has never handed in a proper report. The rank is an honorary one, Sarah. In reality he's is best defined as an independent contractor; one whose skills are particularly useful to us. And on a side note, are you seriously suggesting that after the enclave _and_ the supermutants, a mere band of raiders holds any fears for him? He will slaughter them just like he does everything else."

"Is that what he is to you?" Sarah demanded, "Simply a killing machine?"

"What is he to _you_, Sarah?" Lyons asked gently.

Sarah was suddenly aware that at least two dozen sets of eyes were fixed on her. She took a softer tone, "I'm just saying that after all he's done for us, and for the Wasteland, we're just going to abandon him?"

"That is not even on the table, Sarah." her father said, "but we merely wish to take it slow and exercise some measure of caution. I'll send Gallows to see if the threat is even true. You and the squad will report to Three-Dog and get him to shut the recordings off. They'll only worry things. If this messenger is still alive, question him."

"Jaso- the Wanderer -could be getting tortured as we speak!" Sarah replied furiously.

"He will have to hold out." her father said, "Sarah, Ishmael Ashur called me out by name. I want to know exactly what I'm dealing with. Go to Three-dog, figure out what's going on. Gallows will scout out evergreen mills and come back to us with a report."

Sarah straightened up and saluted; "Yes Sir!" then she turned on her heel and marched out. As soon as she got back into the courtyard, she set her back against the wall and sighed, letting the cool evening air wash over her.

A heavy weight thumped against the wall beside her. She opened her eyes and glanced at Glade. The man was dressed in full power armour. He said, "That was a little more personal for you than usual."

"Everything Rothchild was saying in there. Jason said it all before himself. He didn't think we'd come after him if he got into trouble."

"Well then no hearts broken if we don't, right?"

"Except that I told him otherwise." Sarah said, "I told him we'd watch out for him if he got into trouble. I don't even know where they could have captured him. He said he was going to Megaton…"

"Megaton is a ways away," Glade said, "But just a few minutes after we left the Purifier, the soldiers there reported some raiders across the bridge. They were carrying mininuke launchers."

"The one thing that could probably bring him down…" Sarah cursed at herself, "If I'd stayed with him another half an hour…"

"Then you probably would have been killed in the blast, and I'm sure he'd say the same thing." Glade said. Sarah was well aware that the Paladin had seen Jason and herself kissing, but somehow it didn't bother her the same way it did others. He wasn't there to make jokes of it, or to try to alter it in any way. He just seemed to accept it as part of the present conditions. She noticed that he immediately accepted the assumption that the mininukes could not have killed Jason.

"Jason saved my life close to half a dozen times in the Pitt." Sarah told him, "I can't just sit by while my father decides I'm not allowed to return the favor."

"Think very carefully, Sarah." Glade said, "You can't just disobey an order given by an Elder. Jason-" he frowned, unused to using the name, "- is used to pain and hardship. If he is being tortured, he can probably take it for quite a while. And if you told him we're coming, then he either didn't believe you in which case it doesn't matter, or he did, in which case that knowledge will help see him through." He grinned, "Besides, it's the Lone Wanderer we're talking about. By the time we get there, he'll probably have sorted it all out anyway."

* * *

Jason resurfaced and lay still. His skin was red and raw, much of it having just regrown. He was bathed in sunlight, lying on a sand floor of some sort. He hadn't opened his eyes yet. He could hear the voices of raiders all around him. Yet they were all some distance away.

He opened his eyes and immediately recognized the place. He had killed his third behemoth here. The raiders had thrown him into a tall fenced-in pen reinforced by wooden walls. The inner chainlink fence was probably electrified.

Evergreen Mills… directly west of the Citadel… the Raider's stronghold… a series of catwalks and train carts arranged inside a giant crater. And at the far end: a complex made of an old pre-war foundry. There was a cave system beneath, Jason knew, which extended nearly as far down as the huge concrete structure above it extended upwards. The Raiders could hold out for days inside that foundry.

He rolled over onto his back and stared into the sky. The pain was intense, as if someone had gone over every inch of his body with a cheese grater.

"Wanderer!" said a familiar, yet unwelcomed voice, "Glad to see you're awake."

Jason turned his head to the side and saw, standing on the other side of the fence, Ishmael Ashur. The man now had a ragged scar across his face, courtesy of some lucky troglodyte, probably.

"Fascinating…" Ashur observed, watching the Wanderer rise, "That explains how you survived the explosions on the bridge. Not to mention the steelyard. How long have you been able to just grow back?'

The Wanderer staggered to his feet. It took a few attempts before he was finally able to maintain his own balance. He straightened up as best the pain would allow, and looked Ashur in the face. Something in the former brotherhood soldier's eyes told Jason that something had come loose. The Raider King was no longer sane.

"I thought you were dead." Jason said.

"And I, you." Ashur said, "But then you started growing back. When did you get that useful little skill?"

"What do you want, Ashur?"

"If your plan was to kill me, you weren't doing a very good job…"

"My plan was to stop your city from interfering in the Wasteland." Jason responded, his throat feeling raw, "And I succeeded. I doubt there'll be any more slaver business going on there."

"What about my wife and child?" the Raider spat, "Were they part of your plan?"

"Were you thinking of them when you sent all those raiders into the steelyard?" Jason asked, "I warned you exactly what would happen."

"You _murdered _them!" the king yelled, his eye twitching.

"_You _gave me no other options." the Wanderer responded evenly, "I don't know what your plan is, but however this plays out, you won't survive."

"Do I look like I intend to?" the King asked quietly, "I know that the Brotherhood is going to come. I'm planning on it. Elder Lyons will suffer for all the pain he has caused me!"

"The Pitt's destruction was not Elder Lyons' doing!" Jason corrected, "It was mine. My own responsibility."

"Bullshit!" Ashur screeched. His face contorted causing the healing wound to break open again, spilling small streams of blood down his face, "I know the power of the Brotherhood of Steel! I saw it first-hand twenty years ago! Why do you think Lyons keeps his rats cooped up in the citadel? If he'd order them into battle, been willing to take the losses, he could have conquered the wastes."

"You're not making any sense." Jason said, watching blood drip off the crazed man's chin, "If he were so evil, and if he had the power, he would already have done it. But he's committed to fixing the wasteland instead and has spent nearly all that power doing it! They've been holding off the supermutants for years!"

"And how hard is it to kill a supermutant?" Ashur demanded, "How many have _you_ killed wearing only your duster and red bandana? They have not won this war because Lyons isn't applying himself! If the Brotherhood tried, they could have fixed all the problems of the Capital wasteland without your help. But instead he calls upon you to go to the Pitt and destroy my life." he subsided slightly, "but I don't blame you! You are a tool! A weapon! The Lone Wanderer: a mad, ravenous wolf which Lyons lets out when he's afraid of losing his poor little soldiers."

"I am a human being." Jason said, shaking his head. He thought of Sarah, and the compassion and understanding she had shown where noone else had bothered, "I have value beyond that."

"I'm sure that's what _she _thinks." Ashur said, holding up a set of jingle dogtags. The expression on Jason's face made the Raider laugh, "Do you think me stupid? I noticed her reaction to you when you walked into my office. The very men who brought you here told me what happened on the docks. I'm sure she'll come running. Maybe a few more as well depending on how much her father cares about his animal. And when they get here I will rob Elder Lyons of the very same thing he stole from me! The very same thing _you _stole from me."

Jason very carefully picked up a rock and tossed it gently at the fence. Sure enough, sparks flew out and the entire thing crackled. The Lone Wanderer flashed Ashur a small smile, "Just checking."

The Raider king nodded. A crowd of Raiders, a few dozen at least, was gathering behind him. They carried a nasty collection of lead pipes, baseball bats, brass knuckles, and at least one or two powerfists. They were also watching him with gleeful expressions. It was more than Jason could take on by himself, especially when he was unarmed and could barely stand.

"In the meantime, however," Ashur said, "My boys have asked for a little payback. I'm all too happy to oblige them. Remember boys: no hits to the head. I want him alive. Let us see how much punishment he can take."


	28. Chapter 28

Modus Operandi 28

Sarah knocked quietly on her father's door. Her recon armour felt stiff and unfamiliar, but she wore it anyway. It had been many years since she'd last donned the outfit.

"Come in."

She stepped inside and saluted. "Sentinel Lyons reporting, sir. I request an audience."

Her father sighed, "Sarah, I know why you're acting official, and I can see right through it, so you might as well stop. We are not going to act _right away_. Be patient."

"I'm merely requesting leave to visit megaton." she said stiffly, maintaining the salute, "The ordeal in the Pitt left me incapable of operating at my full capacity. I need some time to put it behind me.

Her father smiled slightly despite himself, "Denied. You'll have to wait until this emergency has been dealt with."

Sarah took a deep breath. She'd spent the entire night thinking it over, and she had come to one conclusion: If playing hardball worked for Jason… "This is a courtesy call, dad. I'm going."

Lyons thought for a moment, then said, "You are far too close to this emotionally, Sarah. Rothchild said the same thing to me when you were first captured and he was right. I was giving out nonsensical orders, and unable to keep things in perspective. I am not asking you to abandon him, I am merely asking you to wait until we have more information."

Ignoring his calls and protests, she silently turned on her heel and marched out. As she passed through the hallway, Glade fell into step with her. He was dressed in his power armour.

"Funny thing about the Brotherhood of Steel," he said conversationally as they turned a corner, "Is no matter what kind of idiotic thing you're going to do, you damned well never do it alone."

They crossed the courtyard to the front gate and were blocked by a silent figure in full power armour, carrying a sniper rifle.

"Hello Gallows." Glade said cheerfully. "How goes your night?"

The figure remained silent and motionless.

"Father ordered you to stop me from rescuing Jason, didn't he?" Sarah asked quietly.

The figure tilted its head.

"Well that's okay then," she said, "because we're just going to Megaton."

They stood eye to eye for a very long time. Eventually, with tectonic slowness, Gallows stepped aside. As Sarah and Glade passed the sniper, he fell in line behind them.

* * *

"Sooo…" Glade asked as they approached the high walls of Megaton, "How do you intend to break him out? By the way, Gallows, we lied."

The Sniper nodded silently; he had already known.

Glade continued, "I mean between the three of us, we have one sniper rifle, and one plasma rifle… and only two suits of armour."

"We're going to visit Jason's house." Sarah told him.

Megaton turned out to be much more secure than Sarah had expected. Next to Rivet City and the Citadel itself, Megaton was probably the most secure place in the capital wasteland. Doubly secure, since the Wanderer lived there.

The gates opened with the grinding screech of metal on metal.

The three soldiers stepped through the gates and looked around. Megaton had been built inside and over a giant crater, creating a giant tangle of catwalks which reminded Sarah of the Steelyard. The city was populated by dozens of people, all wandering from point to point. A small crowd had gathered in the bottom of the crater, surrounding the nuclear warhead which had created the hole in the first place. The Lone Wanderer had disarmed the thing in his first month out of the vault.

A black man in a leather duster and cowboy hat walked up to them, eyeing them with an apprehensive look. A sheriff's badge was pinned to his chest, He said, "It's been a long time since Brotherhood soldiers've been in here. What do you need?"

"I want to see the Lone Wanderer's house." Sarah told him.

The man narrowed his eyes, "He's not in right now. I'm not sure if you've been listening to Three-Dog, but he's in a little trouble. I just finished sending off a few people to help get him out."

"_You _sent people?" Glade asked.

"After all he's done for us?" the sheriff responded, "Of course."

"I wonder how many other settlements have sent people…" Sarah murmured.

"Most of them I should think." the man said.

"We're off to join them, but we need access to his armory." Sarah said, "I'm Sentinel Lyons. This is Paladin Glade and Knight-Captain Gallows."

"You do _look _like Brotherhood soldiers." the sheriff mused.

"Here's my dogtag to prove it." Sarah fished around the neckline of her recon armour and pulled out her tags.

The Sheriff examined them closely. "And why would someone from an organization as well-equipped as the Brotherhood of Steel need access to the Lone Wanderer's house?"

"To be honest, my father isn't too keen on a rescue attempt." Sarah told him, deciding that the truth was best, "So we're doing it without his approval-"

"-Which means no access to your armory. Alright… I'll take you there." he led them across the edge of the crater.

"So what are you hoping to find in there?" Glade asked as the four of them negotiated the steep ground to the nearest catwalk.

"Some power armour, and some really good weapons." Sarah told him. They reached the catwalk and the Sheriff knocked loudly on the door of the house. This resulted in a fair amount of barking.

"Who is there?" said a robotic voice from within. It had a heavy droll British accent.

"Sheriff Lucas Simms." the man announced, "I have some visitors with me. They need access to the Wanderer's armory." he turned back to the travelers, "You guys stand clear. If that dog sees you, he'll tear your throat out."

The door opened and Sarah had just enough time to register a furious grey blur bounding towards her before Lucas Simms caught the snarling dog by the collar and held it down, ordering it to calm down. The thing regarded Sarah and her companions with ferocious, bloodshot eyes. Its ears were flattened against the back of its head and it's many teeth were exposed as it growled. Sarah was reminded briefly of the deathclaw's fangs from all those weeks before.

"Dogmeat's bred to kill." the Sheriff said, crouching beside the dog, calming it. "You guys are damned lucky I stopped you. Get in there, take what you need, and get out."

* * *

Sarah stepped into the shack and closed the door behind her.

"Whoa!" Glade exclaimed.

Jason's house was a cramped, cozy two-story home. The largest room was packed with shelves and racks full of weapons. Ammunition was stacked in the corners along with rifles and pistols. A few miniguns had been pushed between a set of shelves. There were at least five examples of each weapon. Sarah could barely see the floor it was so cramped.

"Okay…" the Paladin commented, "now we know where he keeps his guns. But where does he_ live_?"

"When he is home, the Master spends his time upstairs." the British voice spoke. A Mister Handy in pristine condition floated down the stairs, looking like a giant steel jellyfish, "That is where you will find his bedroom and living quarters."

"Does he have any power armour?" Sarah asked.

"There is a set of Lyons' Pride Power Armour, a set of T51-B Winterized Power Armour, A set of Enclave Hellfire Armour, A set of Chinese Recon Armour, in the cloak room upstairs." The robot directed mechanically.

Sarah turned to Gallows and Glade, "Get what we need." she ordered, making her way upstairs.

The robot followed her saying: "The master has never worn power armour. I am pleased it is finally getting some use."

She could hear Glade tromping around the floor below in his power armour, "This is insane!" he called, sorting through the piles of ammunition, "there's enough here to supply a small army!"

"Master Howlett has been wandering the wasteland continuously for three years. This is not his largest weapons stockpile," the robot told them, "nor is it the most extensive."

"Why would any one person collect so many weapons?" Glade demanded.

Upstairs, Sarah spotted a light coming from a small doorway off to her left. She entered it and beheld a sparse room. There was a set of drawers beside it and a desk. What struck her most was the distinct lack of decorations.

"Maybe they aren't for _him_." She heard Gallows respond. They were the first words the spec ops soldier had spoken since they'd left the citadel four hours before.

What struck her most about Jason's room was the lack of his presence in it. There were no posters, no pictures. Not a single sign of any kind of personalization. The mattress was soft and comfortable, though. It lacked the lumps which afflicted the citadel sleeping quarters.

A stack of recordings had been placed in the nook between the desk and the filing cabinet. Beside them was a small stereo.

"They're all in pristine condition." Glade observed over the clattering of assault rifles being moved, "What was he doing? What was he thinking?"

"I believe he eventually intended it for use by the city of Megaton, if needed. He has one underneath Rivet City as well as in Bigtown and Canterbury commons." The robot's tinny voice echoed through the cramped space.

She carefully picked up the first recording off the stack and slid it gently into the stereo. A calming, mellifluous voice filled the small building. Downstairs, both Glade and Gallows stopped to listen.

_I spoke with Doctor Li, Madison, at Rivet City. It went about as well as I expected. That is to say she thinks I'm completely mad. How can I blame her? She's got her own life, her own team, and is making real tangible scientific progress. Here I come again, the very paragon of failure and false promises. But the reality is, I need Madison and whatever scientific team she may have assembled. I can't do this myself. Project Purity is bigger than me, it always was. And without Catherine... God, I can't let this die. Not again, not like this__…_

This was greeted with the loudest silence Sarah had ever heard. This was James Howlett's voice. Jason's father.

"Sarah, just get on the power armour and let's go." Glade called.

Sarah ignored him. She ejected the first disc on the stack and inserted the next one. The stereo came to life with a crackle and Sarah heard a woman's voice; warm, enthusiastic, full of life and vitality.

_That batch of tests was inconclusive, but Madison and I are convinced it's a problem with the second filtration system. We're going to recalibrate the equipment and try again tomorrow so that... James, please, I'm trying to work. Now's not the time! ...So that's the next step. Assuming we get the results we need, we'll move on to__… James! Stop, I need to finish these notes! _

The woman laughed, having successfully shooed away her aggressor.

_...We'll move on to diagnosing the iss__ues with the radiation dampener. That should... Owww! James! Now? We really shouldn't…_

The recording broke off with the sound of the woman giggling, her work forgotten. After a minute or two, it timed out.

"Sarah!"

The Sentinel jumped. She turned to see Glade standing in the doorway with an angry look on his face. In the manner of a parent ordering his child into the tub, the Paladin pointed at the open door of the Wanderer's cloak room.

"I found a minigun." he said, "Gallows has his sniper rifle and as much ammo as he can carry. Get some armour and let's go!"

Sarah opted for Jason's set of Lyons' Pride Power Armour, feeling at home in it. She realized it was the first time she'd worn the armour since the mutants had taken her. It felt uncomfortable. She also chose a laser rifle with an extended magazine which, according to the robotic butler, was called the Wazer Wifle, though only the gods knew why…

* * *

The three Brotherhood Soldiers crested the hill and stared. They were overlooking a field with train tracks leading into a narrow ravine; the entrance to Evergreen Mills.

Yet the field was not empty. It was full of people. Wastelanders of every shape and size had gathered and set up camps. Sarah could make out the shapes of ghouls, regular wasters, and mercs in combat armour.

Someone spotted them and shouted something. The entire camp began to cheer. Several representatives from each section came forward to greet them.

The first to reach them was a pale, yet not unattractive man wearing a duster much like Jason's. He had a tank of fuel on his back hooked up to a lawnmower blade. Like Three-Dog, his voice was deep, almost hypnotic. Sarah could have happily listened to it for hours. He drew his feet together sharply and bowed, taking her hand and kissing it with a certain amount of elegance, "Greetings, human. I am Vance, of Meresti. A few of my associates as well as myself have come to answer Three-Dog's call and lend what aid we can. I imagine we were all awaiting the arrival of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"We're it." Sarah told him, a little taken aback.

"You've got to be kidding," said the next in line.

Sarah regarded him with some amount of surprise as did Glade who said, in a shocked voice, "_McGraw_?"

"Yeah," said the outcast soldier, "He's done a fair amount for us including saving my ass personally, and we sent ten outcasts. We're the ones who aren't supposed to give a shit. Why the hell are there only three of _you_?"

"My Father is _deliberating_." Sarah told him sarcastically.

"Yeah, well," McGraw crossed his arms with an 'I told you so!' expression on his face, "That's typical Owyn Lyons."

Sarah ignored the jab, mostly because at that moment she felt the same way. What felt like the entire wasteland had gathered, ready to lay down their lives to rescue Jason, and Sarah's own father was still sitting tight in the citadel, refusing to act.

"S'cuse me." Said another voice. Sarah turned and her eyes narrowed. Four Talon Company soldiers were standing beside McGraw.

"Listen," said the speaker as Sarah stared at his black combat armour, "I just wanna establish sumthin' right off the top, y'know? So ya don't shoot me."

"You're Talon Company." Sarah said, "According to Three-Dog, you and the Wanderer are basically mortal enemies."

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know," the merc said quickly, "an' don't get me wrong, I hate the fuck-"

"Careful." murmured a ghoul standing next to him.

"Shut up, Zombie." The merc snapped, "Look, a lot of people in Rivet City are paying us a lot of money to get him out. We get a quarter of the reward now, and the rest when he's delivered back to Rivet City safe and sound. Money is money."

"And that's all you care about…" Said the Ghoul, "Name's Quinn, Underworld. The Wanderer and Three-Dog've done a helluva lot for Ghouls in the wasteland. I got six ghouls here ready to return the favour," he waved a hunting rifle, "and we're _all_ crack shots."

Sarah and Glade wandered through the crowd, being greeted on all sides by all kinds of wastelanders from all walks of life. And they all had one thing in common: they all either owed Jason something directly, or were friends with someone who did.

A few stood out, however.

Sarah approached a stoic black woman carrying the strangest weapon the Sentinel had ever seen. It looked like something out of a pre-war comic book. No weapons Sarah had ever seen bore any resemblance to it.

"Yes?" the woman asked.

"What's your name?" Sarah responded.

"Somah. The Wanderer and I were in a tight spot a few months ago," she shrugged, "I guess I owe him."

"How tight?" Sarah asked, "Supermutants?"

The woman smiled, "You couldn't imagine."

Among the crowd were two hot-headed young men from Bigtown: Shorty and Timebomb, both of whom claimed to be there because the young women in Bigtown had asked them, and it was hard to say no.

"Lyons!" another voice yelled. The Sentinel turned about and spotted a blonde woman carrying a Chinese assault rifle. She was wearing green combat armour with a four leaf clover painted on the chest plate. Sarah recognized her. She led a small merc band who made their money mapping the ruins. The Pride had run into them a few times and were on good terms with them.

Reilly snapped off a quick salute, "Nice to see you again, Sentinel." She motioned at the mass of people, "I've been trying to get this rabble organized into a fighting force, but I could use some help… hand out some orders. We're at your service here."

Sarah nodded. She looked around at the militia, "Take an inventory. I want to know exactly what we've got. How many people? And how many weapons we have. How many medics, as well. Tell each... tell each group to select a leader and have them report to that railcar over there. We'll figure out a strategy."

She turned to Gallows, "I want to know the layout of Evergreen Mills. I want to know where Jason is, and what resistance we'll be facing. On a map. Everyone, you have your orders, get it done!"

* * *

**Lol, I think half of you probably guessed what was going to happen ahead of time. Next chapter will be the last. Then I'll probably post an FAQ section, which I will add to as people ask questions.**

**Btw, if anyone is looking for a few really excellent Lone Wanderer Vrs. Courier fics, check out 'Versus' by ****Dynast Grauscherra****, And '****Fruit of Vice and Virtue' by witcher 241. They're turning out to be really good.**

**On a side note, if any of you are fans of Deviantart and have any skill at making posters (because I have none at all), one for this fic would be really awesome. I realize that it's probably harder to do with Fallout than it is with other things. But in return you'd earn a friend and devoted reader who'd advertise your fics at every opportunity possible.**


	29. Chapter 29

Modus Operandi 29

Sarah spread the map out on the dusty ground A few torches had been lit and placed at intervals around the makeshift headquarters. The militia had been split into four sections: the snipers led by Gallows and made up of himself, Quinn's team, and a few expert marksmen; an armored division, made up of the Outcast soldiers, Sarah and Glade; a combat division lead by Reilly and made up of her team, the talon company soldiers, and anyone else wearing combat armour; and the unarmoured division, made up of anyone who was left, and lead by Somah. The leaders of each section had gathered in a circle around the map.

"Okay…" Sarah said, staring at the map, "We'll have Gallows lead the snipers to the eastern edge of the crater. They'll fire the first shots at daybreak. That way the sun will be in the eyes of anyone trying to fire back. As the fight wears on, his team will move around the edge of the crater until they're surrounding it entirely. They'll be moving ahead of the attackers on the ground, who are heading for move the foundry. Priority targets are missile launchers, mininuke launchers, miniguns, and combat shotguns. Any weapons which pose a threat to those in power armour."

"If I were them," Said Reilly, "I would have planted frag mines around the outer rim to prevent just that."

"They did." Gallows intoned, gesturing at a heavy sack lying beside him. It was chock full of lumps and bulges.

This was greeted with an appreciative silence, broken by Reilly, "what resistance are we talking about?"

"Gallows told me that there are close to forty raiders on the ground. They're mostly armed with small arms. Assault rifles and such with a few more powerful weapons." Sarah said, "but it's reasonable to expect that he has some reserves inside the foundry. Probably around thirty or forty."

"Based on what?"

"On what I'd do." Sarah said, "Ashur used to be a sentinel in the Brotherhood of steel."

"What about scouts, lookouts?" Somah said, "he's bound to have something, right?"

"Not anymore." Said Gallows. "Four hour shifts and we have two hours till morning. By the time they'd find out, we'll already be attacking."

"Anyway, the charge through the ravine will be led by me in the armoured division." Sarah told the group at large, "The combat division will be following us and securing the ground as we take it."

"I don't like that idea." Glade told her honestly, "Evergreeen Mills has three levels, the crater floor, those ramparts, and the wasteland rim above. If we're on the floor, the raiders can take us out from the ramparts. Small arms fire isn't a problem for those of us in power armour, but the combat division is going to get creamed. They've likely mined the passage, too."

"They did," intoned Gallows, once again gesturing at the sack.

"And as for the raiders firing from above," Sarah said, smiling slightly, "the unarmoured division will split into two teams, one following the northern edge of the ravine, one following the south. They'll both be covering the armoured and combat divisions as we make our way in. Somah, I understand you have a few medics with you?"

"Three." The black woman said, hefting her strange weapon.

"Give them an escort and make them hang back at least twenty paces behind the scrimmage line." Sarah ordered, "They'll take care of any casualties. Our first priority is to get Jason out. Gallows?"

"He's being held in a large cage in the center of the camp." The scout reported, "He's gotten the pulp beaten out of him, but I'm pretty sure he's alive."

"He'll be fine." Sarah assured them.

"Clearly you've never been beaten up by raiders." Somah said.

"And clearly you don't know him as well as I do." Sarah responded, "He'll be fine. Our second objective is to kill Ishmael Ashur. He's the man who master-minded the whole plan. He's dressed in a modified version of brotherhood power armour." She winced, remembering her short stay in Haven, "Painted orange and brown. He has a Brahmin skull in place of his houlder plate. Believe me you'll know him when you see him."

"Why did he do all this?" Reilly asked.

"That's a really long story." Sarah told her, "and it's one I might tell you after the battle's over. Everyone get back to your teams, get them ready to move. The starting signal will be Gallows' first shot."

* * *

Dawn broke, its first rays of light flowing over the wasteland. They slid through a crack in the wooden walls of the cage, past the electrified chainlink fence, and hit the face of Jason Howlett, waking him up. He struggled, ignoring the pain, and tried to get as much of his bare skin in contact with the sunlight as possible. He was weak as a kitten; the raiders had beaten him to a bloody pulp, and then left him to bleed out in the dark of the night. Thankfully the rads had regenerated his bones, but his soft tissue was mashed and torn to the point where moving was almost a physical impossibility.

He felt the power of the sunlight slowly seeping in, rejuvenating him. His wounds, ever so slowly, began to heal.

* * *

Gallows watched the sunlight slowly crawl across the floor of the crater. He had spent the last two hours watching a raider with a missile launcher patrol across the tops of the railcars. He set the crosshairs of his scope squarely on the back of the raider's head, paused a moment and adjusted slightly for the wind, then pulled the trigger. Across the crater, the raider's head exploded. All around the rim, Gallows saw the smoke and sharp bursts of light as Quinn and the other sharpshooters opened fire. Within the first minute, six raiders were dead. He watched as the group of power-armoured soldiers slipped down the center of the ravine. A raider on the ramparts above shouted something harsh and tried to ready a grenade. A crack shot from Quinn cut his life short.

On the ground below, the raiders were trying to set up a defense and keep the power-armoured division contained in the ravine's bottleneck, unfortunately, their cover was completely open to Gallows and Quinn, both of whom cut their defenses to shreds.

The outcasts poured into the floor of the crater, splitting into three groups, one led by Sarah, one led by McGraw, and one led by Glade. The teams in combat armour followed them, moving behind and cleaning up. They had a set strategy: the militia in combat armour would set up a base of fire while the power-armoured soldiers flanked and flushed out the enemy. Then the mercenaries would move up to the new set of cover and repeat the process.

"Gallows, snipers! Shack, north west!" Quinn shouted out a warning.

Gallows turned his attention to the spot and found six raiders with sniper rifles trying to take out the ghoul sharpshooters on the edge of the crater which were preventing the raiders from forming any kind of defense.

He cut them down, pinning two behind the building where their ability to counter the snipers was limited.

* * *

Sarah turned a corner and felt the impact of a baseball bat on her helmet. It made her head ring, but she responded with the butt of the Wazer Wifle and smashed the Raider's face in. She glanced past the stricken woman and saw the walls of a giant cage. She circled it, taking care to stay within the cover of the constantly moving skirmish line, until she found the entrance. Jason was lying in the middle of the pit, dressed in torn, bloodstained rags. He had a look of intense curiosity on his face. She approached the fence, "Jason!"

He turned his head, obviously in pain, and said, "don't touch the fence! Blow up the generator."

She looked around for one and spotted it nearby. She took a few steps back and fired at it until it burst into flames with the force of a grenade. The chainlinks crackled. She approached the gate and threw it open. Behind her, Reilly's Rangers set up a base of fire at the entrance.

Sarah walked to the center and pulled Jason up, cradling his head. He smiled up at her weakly,

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Pull me into the sunlight." He ordered, "and find me an assault rifle."

Sarah obeyed, planting him next to Reilly, "Get him out of here." She looked up at the towering concrete structure of the foundry. An assault rifle opened fire at her from one of the windows, and she spotted, just for a moment, the sight of a Brahmin skull shoulder pad. She grabbed her Wazer Wifle and ran for the entrance.

* * *

Sarah burst through the front door of the foundry to find herself in an office. Several bullets pinged off her armour and embedded themselves in the walls. She let off several bursts with the Wazer Wifle and decimated the defending raiders. Her mind was overtaken by one goal: Find Ishmael Ashur, and kill him. The raider king was a threat to her father, a threat to the wasteland, and a threat to Jason. With the world in the state it was, that was reason enough for summary execution.

Despite the fact he'd never worn it, Jason had taken good care of his Lyons' Pride power armour. It was in pristine condition, as if it had just come off the shelf of a pre-war factory. He had even made a few corrections, touched up the weak points and added armour where needed. As a result, Sarah was almost invincible. As she moved through the foundry, all the raider's shots bounced off leaving nothing more than hefty dents.

The raiders, on the other hand, had next to no armour, and fell easily to her well-aimed beams of light.

She came upon a cave entrance. It was no more than a hole in the ground, but it was very large, and very deep. She reached up and flicked on the lamp attached to her helmet. Then she shouldered her laser rifle and descended into the hole.

It carried on downwards for some time, full of plateaus and criss-crossing stone bridges. Pools of light, worn out mattresses and a pool table spoke volumes about what this cavern meant to the Raiders. It was a refuge. A hold-out. The place to make a final stand.

It was also completely devoid of life. As she made her way deeper and deeper, she caught sight of the bottom, lit by torches spaced evenly around the walls. She was standing on the bridge about ten feet above it when Ashur appeared.

"Lyons!" Ashur's voice was right beside her. Sarah swung around. The Raider King caught the barrel of the Waser Wifle and twisted it out of her grasp. Continuing the motion, he stepped forward, locked his arm around hers, pulled her and kneed her in the gut, his power-armoured assist sending her flying off the bridge and landing heavily on the floor of the cavern.

The Armour protected her from the worst of the impact, but it still left her winded. From her prone position, she rolled to the side. It was well that she did, as he landed on his feet in the exact spot her head had been only a moment before. She rose and they circled each other, fists raised in the Brotherhood's fighting stance.

He had no helmet, but appeared confident enough not to need one. He also had an assault rifle on his back, but seemed more interested in using his fists.

She paused for a second, and then went in low, snapping a lightening fast punch at his midriff. A spot where she knew the hydraulics in the suit had a weakness. She had once seen an instance of one of the cylinders cracking, sending a thin lance of high-pressure fluid through the soft tissue of an initiate, slicing him in half within his own suit. It was a trick she'd used once on an outcast soldier who'd believed too strongly in his cause. Glade had taught her how to do it, exactly where to hit.

But her punch didn't connect. The Lord of the Pitt had dodged easily to the side, snapping down a block with one arm, and hitting her neatly across the face with the other, spilling her onto the stone floor.

"Very good, Sentinel. I see Glade taught you well. Do you want to know a secret?" he asked as she rose, "I taught _him_." he struck like a snake, landing six blows neatly across her left side, forcing her to raise both arms in defense, her left arm down protecting her mid-riff, and her right arm bent across her chest, protecting her head.

The moved saved her life, as it prevented him from using the same trick on her that she had tried and failed. Unfortunately, it also left her right side open to his kick, which hooked the back of her knee and forced her to spin around in order to prevent being tripped up. As she spun right, he strafed left and landed several blows to her kidneys. He finally kicked her in the square of the back, sending her sprawling out on her stomach.

"You're fast, Sarah." he intoned, circling, "but I have two and a half decades of experience on you. You should know that I intend to kill you, Sentinel. That's the point of this exercise. Payback. For all the pain your father has caused me. Jason Howlett was never my intended target. He was bait."

She began to rise. He stepped forward, trying to plant his boot in her side, but she was ready, catching it before it impacted and allowing it to continue the journey upwards, unbalancing him. She kept rising and pushing, Throwing him on his back. But he turned it into a roll, sending both of them head over heels. There was a complicated moment which ended with her on her back and the Raider King on top, keeping her down by planting his knee on her chest. He landed three snake-strike blows on her helmet, making her ears ring and her head spin. The glass in her visor cracked, obscuring her vision.

Blind, she grabbed his knee and pushed with all her might, dislodging him long enough to land a blow on his face. He yelled in pain and dove away. She scurried sideways, pulling off her helmet and letting it fall to the floor.

Ashur was cradling his cheek. Blood flowed freely from his mouth. He grinned at her and spat out a few teeth. If he was experiencing intense pain, he refused to show it. They circled eachother again, searching for openings. He threw out a few goading punches, trying to tempt her with openings, but she was smart enough to stay back. It was all a game of waiting and survival. Eventually the militia would make its way down the hole and shoot him from a distance. She just had to stay alive long enough to let them.

He sprang forward, unleashing a barrage of blows, forcing her into a defensive stance. As they rained down, she spotted her opening. She raised her arm carefully, exposing the armour's weak point. He took the bait and snapped out a punch. Even as he extended his arm, she ducked under it and hit him in exactly the same spot. There was a moment of silence during which his armour froze up, then a small sproing noise. He screamed in agony as the fluid cut him open.

Sarah pounced on the opportunity, but saw the look in his eyes too late. She realized that he had never intended to survive the day. He was prepared for death, more so than she. That he didn't mind the pain, or the fact that his body was only being held together by the suit. And that he was prepared to fight anyway. He caught her by the throat and slammed her down onto the floor of the cavern, leaving her dazed.

Aware that his time was short, Ashur flipped her over and found a button, hidden underneath the metal plating, sunk into the very circuitry of the suit. He remembered it well. It was an emergency release built specifically for when the soldiers, or medics trying to save the suit's occupants, had no other options. He had pressed the same button on his own suit after falling through the hole in the steel mill all those years before. He pressed it and backed away as Sarah overcame the shock and scampered forward.

Her suit seemed to disintegrate as she moved, parts falling off and scattering across the floor of the cave. He strode towards her, blood and hydraulic fluid seeping out from between the joints in his suit. At last, devoid of armour, she kicked off her boots and spilled out onto the floor. A simple set of recon armour was all that stood between her and the rest of the world.

Ashur grabbed her by the shoulder, turned her around, and hit her in the gut. His armour gave him the strength of a supermutant. her entire body shook and warped with the blow. It cracked her ribs, sending her flying backwards into the curved wall of the cave. She slid to the bottom and lay there, temporarily paralyzed by the force of the blow, fighting to get her breath back.

The Lord of the Pitt strode forward, taking his assault rifle off his back.

"Ashur!" The Wanderer's voice echoed through the cavern, "Ashur! It shouldn't have had to end like this!" Sarah could hear Jason's outrage. He was not showing anger at the raider king, but anger at the universe for once again forcing him to slaughter to protect. Forcing him to destroy before he could build.

"And how else could it have ended?" Ashur replied, searching the darkness, Sarah forgotten, "you killed my _wife_. My _child_! Did you honestly believe I wasn't going to hunt you down?"

"_You_ killed them! You had a choice!" the Wanderer countered, "I gave you the offer of peace! What stopped you from accepting it? Your pride?"

"Shutup!" Ashur screamed.

The Wanderer continued, "Could you not stand the fact that someone else was rebuilding as well? Did the Pitt _have_ to be the city on top? Or was it something else? A grudge against the brotherhood? Did they have to be the epitome of evil for you?"

"You are exactly the same!" Ashru snarled, "Perfectly willing to destroy an entire growing civilization to save your own!"

"The wasteland is my child, Ashur. And I must do whatever is necessary to help her grow and thrive. I would give my last breath to protect her just as my father did for me! Just as any good father would do! What about you, Ashur? Where were you when Marie died?"

"SHUT UP!" Ashur opened up with his assault rifle, emptying an entire clip into the darkness.

"Were you with her, Ashur? Standing beside your wife and gunning down trogs until you had no ammo left, then throttling them with your bare hands to stop them from getting to your only child?"

"I am going to skin you!" the raider king screamed at the top of his lungs, streams of spittle flying from his mouth. His eyes were wide and completely wild the blood was pooling at his feet.

"Or were you trying to hunt down Sarah Lyons? Trying to stop her from leaving? One last ditch attempt to stick it to Elder Lyons? Acting on a grudge two decades old instead of your responsibilities as a parent? As your city's guardian?"

Ashur stayed silent. He was far too angry for words anymore. His face had turned white with rage, and his knuckles were clutching his assault rifle so hard that they too had turned completely white.

"Do you know how I killed Wernher?" the Wanderer asked, his voice gentle, "With one headshot. I'm carrying the gun right here in my hand. One headshot, Ashur. One shot, one kill. Do you know what I did after I killed him?"

"What?" the raider king demanded.

The Lone Wanderer stepped into the pool of light, his sleek black modified assault rifle held loosely in his grip. "I lamented his death," he said, his voice no longer echoing. He was speaking to Ashur straight on now, though the Lord of the Pitt had his back turned. "I lamented the fall of a good man, and then I moved on. One can't dwell on the past, Ashur." He spoke with the wisdom of one who knew from experience, "It hurts you in the present."

The former brotherhood soldier spun around, raising his assault rifle, but the Wanderer was faster and let loose one round. It flew through the air, hitting Ashur square in the middle of the forehead.

Ashur's corpse dropped to the floor of the cave and lay there, unmoving, the pool of blood slowly growing.

Sarah allowed herself to breath again. Her chest ached from the blows Ashur had landed. She rose gingerly, walked up and kicked the corpse's weapon away. "Clear. Let's get out of here and leave him to rot."

"No." Jason shook his head, "He should get a decent burial." He crouched beside the corpse and reverently closed Ashur's eyes, which were staring at the ceiling in glossy hatred, "He was a good man, Sarah. He arrived at the same conclusion your father did except he knew from the beginning. It ended this way because I was too far gone to see that it needed a light touch. I didn't extend to him the hand of friendship, I gave him an ultimatum. This wasn't the outcome I wanted. It wasn't what should have happened. It should have ended with Ashur, your father, and Rothchild gathered around a table, saying their apologies and thinking of the future. Not in some dank, dark cave under Evergreen Mills. I'm so used to dealing with the wild, the evil, and the violence…I wasn't willing to extend him any courtesy. I was too detached. I couldn't see it."

"That wasn't the only thing you couldn't see," Sarah prompted, "Did you see the crowds out there?"

Jason nodded.

"You aren't as alone in this world as you thought, Jason." She told him gently.

"Thank you for organizing it."

"_I_ had nothing to do with it." Sarah said, her chest burning, "_My_ plan was to sneak in in the middle of the night, give you a switchblade and turn you loose."

Jason laughed.

"The milita was nobody's plan." she told him, "Three-Dog called the Brotherhood over the radio and told us to do something about it. Everyone else just happened to be listening, and each group sent over some people. You were in trouble, and the wasteland answered the call."

"And _you _answered the call."

"Don't you dare thank me for that," she ordered.

He nodded.

"I'm heading back to the citadel," she said, "I'm going to have a long talk with my father, I suspect."

"I'll come when I'm ready." he replied.

"_If _you ever will be ready." she corrected, "Don't use this as an excuse to push yourself harder, Jason."

She left him in the darkness.

* * *

Sarah stepped back into the light of day, serenaded by the sound of Vertibirds. She looked up to see half a dozen of them pouring out of the sky.

The Vertibirds touched down in the center of evergreen mills, spilling out Brotherhood soldiers to the laughter and jeers of the militia. The soldiers fanned out professionally, pushing back the crowd and forming a defensive perimeter around the final Vertibird. It landed and the door opened. Elder Owyn Lyons, robes billowing in the draft of the rotorblades strode into Evergreen Mills, followed closely by the Lyons' Pride. He stopped when he was a fair distance from the Vertibird, which had shut off its engines, and surveyed the battlefield. The few captured raiders were being pushed none too gently into the electrified cage. The dead were being piled beside the entrance to the foundry, and weapons were being picked up and organized into stacks.

He caught sight of Sarah, standing with Glade near the pile of bodies. She recognized in his expression a look of fury she hadn't encountered since she was a child. He started purposefully towards her with all the wrath and determination of an avenging angel. When she judged he was close enough, Sarah brought her feet together in a salute.

"Sentinel Sarah Lyons rep-"

The sound of his palm impacting her cheek echoed around the giant complex. Harsh silence fell.

"Sentinel Sarah Lyons," He began, his voice a death toll, "Your actions showed rashness, a lack of forethought, and a disregard for the safety of your fellow Brotherhood soldiers. These actions show that you are unfit for the rank of Sentinel. You are hereby stripped of your rank, reduced to Star Paladin. If you choose to leave the Brotherhood of Steel, I will require your armour and weaponry. In respect towards your years of service, we will provide a fee of one-hundred caps, which should give you a basis upon which to start a new life in the capital wasteland."

"You're always welcome at the Ranger Compound." Reilly shouted. A few people laughed.

Sarah stood frozen to the spot, her eyes fixed on her feet, one hand upon her still stinging cheek. Tears were pouring freely down her face, forming a tiny pool on the ground between her feet. Despite everything, she somehow found the courage to meet her father's eyes.

He was equally as tearful, the pain of hurt and betrayal showing plain on his face. He said, in quiet tones, "I didn't want _you _to go, Sarah. Not after everything else that's happened. Ashur targeted _me _personally and you're my daughter. What if you'd been hurt? What if you'd been killed? He's not worth the risk. Not to me."

"I'm a grown woman." she replied, keeping some of the shuddering out of her voice, "And it's time you let go of some of that."

With that, she dropped her weapon at his feet and headed towards the flying machines.

* * *

Jason watched from his perch atop the roof of the foundry. On the ground below, the militia was still cleaning up. The Vertibirds rose majestically into the air. Jason had never noticed how elegant a design they actually were. For all these years the only feeling they'd invoked in him was anger. And now…

Jason did not believe in love. Not the fast sort which appeared in far too many trashy pre-war novels, anyway. He believed that it was something which happened after many years of being close to a person. But Sarah Lyons had awoken _something_ within him that yearned to be living a different life, or at least to find a balance between his father's dreams and his own.

"Something troubles you, my friend."

Jason turned. Leo was standing on the roof behind him.

"How long have you been here?"

"Several hours." the mutant said, "I was attempting to determine a way to rescue you. I could not attempt to join the militia for fear of being shot at. I am also a pacifist, and so not of much use in a battle."

The mutant took a seat beside him, "Yet I may be of use now. Something Troubles you."

"It's Sarah." Jason said.

"Ah…" the mutant said. He added, with a certain amount of flair, "Romance…"

"But there's a problem." Jason told him.

"Your position and the legends surrounding it unfortunately will always demand some level of isolation. However that does not mean you should not be allowed to seek comfort in another."

"My modus operandi has always been to protect the people of the wasteland at any cost to those outside the wasteland, and at any cost to me personally."

"Even at the cost of your own happiness?" the mutant rumbled.

"My happiness was stolen from me the moment I was booted out of the vault. It is my cheapest and least useful commodity, Leo."

"No. You merely are not allowing yourself to have any. You want it to happen. You just need a way to justify it to yourself. You need a way to justify putting her life and your own happiness over the lives of those less able to defend themselves. It is a tall order and I suspect that most excuses would look flimsy to one as committed as you."

Jason looked up at him, a little shocked. The mutant had hit the nail on the head, "Do you have a way to justify it?" he asked.

"I do, actually." the mutant said, "But I cannot share it with you. It is a conclusion you must arrive at by yourself, otherwise _you_ could not live with it. Others might have been able to, but you cannot. You are far too hard on yourself for that."

Jason stared longingly at the vertibirds as they shrank in the distance. He turned back to Leo, "Give me a hint at least," he pleaded, "Give me something!"

The mutant watched him for a long time. At last, Leo spoke. "When your father first decided to leave project purity, why didn't he take you to Rivet City? Or back to the citadel?"

"Because…" Jason thought hard, "Because taking care of me would have interfered with his working on project purity."

Leo smacked himself on the forehead, "My friend," he growled, "that may have been the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say. May I suggest you think before you speak? Try again."

Jason blinked once or twice, "he followed me into the vault, and therefore he didn't want to work on project purity at all."

"And?" Said Leo, leading him through it.

"Instead, he wanted to make sure that I…" Jason's voice died away. He stood as if in a trance, his eyes not focused on anything in particular, but instead watching some unseen events play out in his own mind, "I'm going north. There's something I need to take care of."

* * *

Sarah unsteadily opened the door to her quarters. It had been three days since the battle at Evergreen Mills. Three days since she had last seen Jason Howlett. Three days since her father had stripped her of her rank. The two of them had not spoken to eachother since, not that she had made any attempts to patch things up. The Pride had joked and japed and done what they could to lighten the mood, but it was a dark time.

She scanned the empty room, and her eyes fell on a splash of colour. She stared, mouth hanging open in complete shock. She knew what it was; pre-war books had described them, with faded pictures, had spoken of entire fields of the things, but she had never actually laid her own eyes on one before.

She walked slowly up to the table and stared down at the bright yellow flower. It was sitting in a small old flowerpot. A few bottles of Aqua Pura had been placed beside it.

She felt Jason's hands slide around her waist, pulled her close. She embraced it fully, leaning backward into his chest. She rested her head against his cheek and they both stared down at the rare plant.

"Where the fuck did you find a flower?" Sarah asked.

"A place called Oasis." The Wanderer replied, "I'd like to show you some time."

"Finally decided to lay down some roots, huh?"

"Ahh, you know me," he said, twisting her around and kissing her, "I'm not that metaphorical."

Being too busy to look, he felt behind them for the door, found it, pushed it shut, and locked it.

* * *

Night had fallen over the old foundry of Evergreen Mills, hiding the two shapes who watched the Militia tearing the place to shreds. One of them was enormous and warped, a supermutant. The other was human, wearing an expensive pre-war suit. He had sunglasses and a fedora. A cigarette was being cradled between his thumb and forefinger.

"He is dead," Said the supermutant.

"Indeed he is," replied the human. His voice was low and silken, "If I may, this removes the last outside antagonist. You _will_ be the Wanderer's next target."

"We are not ready." The mutant said, "I need at least three more months."

"My associates and I can slow his progress, but only for so long."

"How many caps?" the mutant asked.

"A fee of ten-thousand caps ought to cover our overhead expenses while allowing Mister Littlehorn a modest profit. We can buy you the time you need, Brutus."

"It will be paid." The supermutant growled, "And this wasteland _will _be a supermutant nation."

"Of that, I have no doubt…" the human replied smoothly. He turned to the mutant and extended his hand, "It is always a pleasure doing business with you, Brutus."

"Likewise," the mutant replied, taking the man's hand, "Mister Burke."

* * *

**Alright so, the last chapter. It was a long one. I probably should have split it into two, but whatever.**

**Lol, I had the song "Whipping Post" by The Allman Brothers Band playing in my head all through the Evergreen Mills battle.**

**In terms of the fight between Sarah and Ashur, Sarah is tough, but Ashur is more experienced. I've been taking karate for close to ten years now. I'm a blue belt, but my sensei is still able to wipe the floor with me using many of the same moves I described.**

**As for the emergency release, it's not technically in-game, but it makes sense. Depending on where a soldier gets hit, he/she may need aid immediately and those suits look like they take a while to put on and take off. An emergency release is a reasonable thing to assume and it would likely be built in to any mechanical system, much like the eject button on jet fighters. It's not too much of a leap. Besides, if you were alone, how would you get out of it? If it were damaged, how would you get out of it?**

**As for the hydraulics, a leak is always a danger in any system, doubly so for one that would take as much of a beating as one in power armour.**

**And anyone who's been hit hard in the gut knows that it's a hard blow to shake off. I figure especially if you're used to having power armour there protecting your midriff. And your opponent is using a power-armoured assist…**

**I will post an additional FAQ section to deal with comments, questions and concerns, rounding off the story to an even Thirty.**


	30. FAQ

**This story is darker than a lot of them. What's with that?**

Fallout 3 is a dark, bleak, and depressing game. I wanted to reflect that. It should never be too happy.

**What's with your Lone Wanderer? He's too emo.**

I based my Lone Wanderer on one assumption: that anyone in his position would have two sides to them.

He'd start out as a young man, scared and lost. But I felt that a second side would be forged out of the fires of necessity more than anything else; a cold hard killing machine which would take over as he traveled more and experienced more of the wasteland.

I felt that as he spent more and more time away from people and among the badguys, the cold hard killer would do a sort of take-over. Then he'd meet Sarah, and whether by accident or design, she'd bring back the young man and give him a way to rise above the killer. His own character arc depends on that inner battle.

The simple fact is that the lone wanderer is a tragic character. In the original game, his life after the vault is nasty, brutish, and is defined by tragedy. If you guys recall, unless you have Broken Steel, he actually _dies_ at the end of it. And if you DO have Broken Steel, then anyone who survived that would be closed off and difficult to talk to, whether their intentions were good or not. So I didn't intend him to be emo, but Jason Howlett is a pretty dark take on the character, and I personally prefer a dark take to a lone wanderer who is bright, happy and cheerful despite his/her situation.

I also wanted to get at the heart of what could possibly push a character back into the fire again and again and again.

And what might pull him out.

**Your Lone Wanderer is too competent/powerful.**

By the end of the game, if one has done everything, the LW is basically a god. He/She is at level 30 with an enormous amount of perks, the right combination of which can make _anyone_ nearly invincible even on the harder difficulty settings. That was only about six to eight months after exiting the vault. This story takes places several _years _after that. _And_ he's spent all that time in the north, or point lookout, or the Pitt. If this were in-game, Jason Howlett would be about level 90 if we try to scale it. If we don't scale the levels at all, he'd be at about 135 at least, 180 at most. Considering _that_, I thought I underplayed him.

The point is that he is so far ahead of other people in the wasteland that he has lost the ability to work alongside them. Sarah brings him back. His character flaws, and the challenges he faces are not the physical ones. They are mental and emotional. Sarah Lyons is the one who faces the physical challenges. That's why the action is mostly from her point of view.

The two of them help each other through; he with the physical, and she with the emotional. That's what brings them together. It's the whole point.

**Why is Sarah such a pussy? She's normally a badass.**

I disagree. She's is neither a pussy, nor a badass, she's a competent _soldier, _and a competent_ leader. _And just like the real world, sometimes soldiers get into situations they aren't capable of dealing with.

I had no intention of short selling Sarah's abilities; I was merely trying to put her in a situation where she was out of her depth.

I was hoping that during her time spent in the Pitt, I demonstrated the fact that she did adapt and by the end of it had managed to survive conditions which regularly kill off the slaves and raiders living there. In the big steelyard battle, the difference was her training, not the LW being there. He was busy. What she says in the story doesn't necessarily reflect her actual abilities in the story, which are considerable.

The conclusion I came to was the fact she traveled with a person who gets healed by radiation and sunlight, can pick off nearly anything at nearly any distance with nearly any weapon, doesn't appear to get phased or even slightly worried by _any_ combat situation, and who did in about a year what the entire BOS has consistently failed to do (I.E. make the wasteland better instead of preventing things from getting worse), I felt that it wasn't unreasonable for her to be feeling a little modest and a little insecure about her own impact on what happened in the Pitt.

She is still perfectly capable of defending herself if need be, and when she _is_ helpless in the story, it is because she is facing circumstances that she simply is not capable of dealing with given her tools, health, and situation. These are circumstances which _any_ regular person or any regular soldier _would _be incapable of dealing with. She_ is_ a force to be reckoned with _in_ the capital wasteland, when at the head of an assault. But the fact is that the Pitt, and the problems encountered there are at that point, the Lone Wanderer's territory, his ballgame, and it's a whole different league. And if anyone could do anything the Lone Wanderer does, then he wouldn't have risen to the messianic heights which FO3 places him on. Therefore I had to tone her down a little bit.

Besides in the game, she didn't actually do all that much. She is the Boba Fett of Fallout 3.

-She rescued GNR (but LW had to kill the behemoth).

-She led the assault on the purifier (but let Liberty Prime do all the work)

-She rescued LW from the Landcrawler. (But didn't fire a shot, from what I recall)

That's basically it. Nothing in there suggests she's any more badass than any other member of the Lyons' Pride or the rest of the Brotherhood for that matter. She just holds the highest rank. She's a very _competent soldier_. If you're looking for badass, try star paladin cross. She and James crossed through the middle of the western DC ruins with a _baby_ and made it all the way to Vault 101 without any problems. _That's _impressive.

**Where is the romance? I want to see LW ****and Sarah on a romantic wasteland romp proclaiming their eternal love for each other and getting to know each other at the deepest possible levels, never mind the fact that the super mutants are loose and people are getting skinned by raiders…**

Again, the Pitt journey is meant as more of a nightmare than a grand swashbuckling adventure. Given that fact, there's not much opportunity or room for a romance subplot, because the characters are always busy simply trying to stay alive.

I have a problem with most of the Sarah Lyons/LW romances on this site. Things tend to happen too fast, or the characters are always with each other instead of doing what they _would_ do, which is put duty first.

I tried to take it slow, and let them grow close and get to know each other during the times when they caught a break. Unfortunately these were few and far between.

I feel that by the end of Broken Steel, both characters are adults with other responsibilities neither of them would be willing to drop, even for each other, and that only close proximity for a period of stressful time would develop from friendship into love, seeing as how mutual respect was already established.

To explain it another way, this story isn't about their eternal love for eachother, it's about how a possible romantic relationship _could_ start. And it would take a while; the Wanderer as I wrote him wouldn't be the same if his shell were cracked so easily.

**Where are Fawkes and Dogmeat? I want my companions!**

Chris Nolan knows that no sidekicks make a better batman. The same rule applies here. I was looking for a Lone Wanderer who at least on the surface was not used to having other people around. Slightly misanthropic and ill at ease around people who aren't trying to stab/shoot him in the back. Though I do love Dogmeat, and will probably include him as a pet that lives at LW's house in any future stories.

The Lone wanderer is the LONE Wanderer, and much more interesting from a drama standpoint when he works alone. It leads people to question _why _he works alone.

Besides, I've read soooo many good fics on this site that had banter between the companions which was either out of place, or out of character. Mostly both. It tended to screw up more than it fixed.

**What's with the Brotherhood in this book, man? They're not idiots!**

No they aren't. But after twenty years of fighting the supermutants, no one had even the slightest idea where they came from? Something is wrong there. Also, you never hear that the brotherhood attacked a super mutant camp. The CWBoS is _always_ on the defensive. I just don't see how they're playing the game as being very smart.

If being undermanned was their _only _problem, they should still have been able to hit the supermutants where it hurt i.e. vault 87, cutting off access to the FEV virus.

I don't view them as a "professional military" any more than I view the Talon Company as professionals. The only truly professional army left was the Enclave. The Brotherhood is more of a pseudo-religious cult with access to big weapons and power armour. It's much more obvious to those who have played at least half-way through fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas. They aren't all powerful. But they _are_ the most powerful force for good in the capital wasteland in 2277. Under those circumstances they do stand in for a professional army.

**Howlett is Wolverine's last name. And Jason's dad's first name is James, which is Wolverine's **_**first**_** name, so…**

This was not intentional, but it's kinda hilarious and I think I'm going to stick with it, just for kicks.

**Is there going to be a sequel? And when is it coming?**

I have at least three other ideas in mind for this series, two of which you saw glimpses of in this story. There _Will _be a sequel, probably two.

But I'm going to say it right now, they're both probably going to lack the introspection of this one.

**Is "Brutus" an original character?**

Yes he is. I'm not going to say any more than that, though.

**As more questions are asked, I'll answer them and expand this section.**

**In conclusion, thanks for the read and review if you left one. **


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